Having been to visit IATA’s headquarters a few weeks ago, I headed to Geneva Airport to catch my easyJet flight back home. Despite the snow beginning to fall on the city, I found a warm welcome at the Swissport Horizons Lounge in GVA. Here’s my review of the lounge and its facilities.

As a Priority Pass holder, I usually have my choice of lounge made for me, as there is often only one PP lounge on site. Larger airports may have two, but Geneva actually boasts three Priority Pass lounges. In addition to the Swissport Horizons, there was also the choice of the Dnata Skyview Lounge and the Air France-KLM Lounge.

The Air France-KLM Lounge restricts access between 14:00 and 20:00 on some days, and today happened to be one of those days, so that was out. The Dnata would have been my preferred choice, but access is restricted during peak hours, and now happened to be one of those times, so that was also out.

Thankfully the Swissport Horizons has no access restrictions and, although it was busy, there was plenty of space.

Getting into the lounge

Finding the Swissport lounge is actually much easier than finding either of the others. Once you’re through security, it’s just past some shops and up a flight of stairs to the mezzanine area.

The lounge is unmissable. A huge red glass wall runs the length of the lounge alongside the mezzanine balcony; if you miss that you really are in need of a beer!

Access is the usual for Priority Pass members; show your app or physical card and sign in. The reception area was clean and inviting, and the staff on the desk were helpful and friendly.

The layout

First off, this isn’t a huge lounge. It’s a long way from being the smallest, but it’s fairly compact as lounges go. However, it is nicely divided up into separate areas for relaxing and eating. What it doesn’t have is a particularly good area for working, which is kind of a big disappointment for a working lounger like me.

The most logical place to set up a laptop is at the café style seating in front of the food area. Unfortunately only the tables against the wall have power outlets, which equates to enough ‘desk’ space for about four or five people. Fine if you’ve got a nice new MacBook with an everlasting battery, but for the rest of us, juice is a must.

Having said that, the rest and relaxation are looked pretty good and there was a decent selection of magazines and newspapers in both English and French. An effort at area division was provided by some sticks of bamboo.

The food and drink

It was quite late in the day, although not entirely past dinnertime, and the selection of food was dire. There was a vegetable soup, some breads, peanuts in a jar, salad and some squares of brie. On the sweet side, there were cookies or prepackaged biscuits. In a hotbox at the end of the bar was some white rice and a sweet potato curry.

It was a fairly meager selection, but I’d not arrived particularly hungry, so I was happy with some bread and cheese. On the upside, there was a fair selection of beer, wine, juice, carbonated drinks and a few hard spirits on the top shelf above the coffee machines.

There was also a good selection of hot beverages, with a good coffee machine on hand.

Staff and general atmosphere

While this isn’t my favorite lounge in the world by a long stretch, it’s also not the worst I’ve ever been in either. The staff were friendly, although perhaps not as proactive in cleaning up as they could have been. I think a lot was down to the late departure of my flight, which meant everyone was in an ‘end of the day’ sort of mood.

I did like that there was a departures board right in the lounge, making it easy to keep an eye on the status of my flight. GVA also has a great mobile app which is a convenient way to keep track of things. However, it was unfortunate that the lounge closed at 22:00 which meant, due to my flight being delayed, I was unceremoniously removed from my comfortable seat before I was ready to leave.

Overall, I think the Swissport Horizons lounge is a solid option if the other two lounges are inaccessible. As it’s never restricted and likely doesn’t get completely full very often, you’re guaranteed a space in here regardless of when you travel. Having said that, next time I’m in Geneva I’m looking forward to trying out one of the other Priority Pass lounges to see how they compare.

Have you visited the lounges at GVA? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.