Review: JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt Terminal 2

June 28, 2017

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As far as I was concerned my trip to visit Tokyo for two nights and three days officially started in the JAL Business Class lounge at Frankfurt airport but, technically speaking, my first flight of the day has been a British Airways positioning flight from London which arrived into Frankfurt shortly after 2pm.

In Frankfurt the British Airways flights arrive into the same airport terminal that houses the JAL lounges (T2) and, fortuitously, my flight arrived into a gate just a few minutes walk from the lounge doors – no passport control or security to navigate so it was incredibly convenient.

Location

The JAL Sakura Business Class lounge and the JAL First Class lounge are located next to each other on level 3 of Frankfurt terminal 2 – they’re positioned after immigration but before airport security by the terminal’s D-gates.

Access

Access to the JAL Sakura Business Class lounge is based on either a passenger’s oneworld status or the fare booked. Entry is granted to:

Oneworld Emerald & Sapphire status holders + 1 guest per status holder – all must be traveling on the day of entry on a flight marketed and operated by a oneworld airline.
Passengers traveling in First Class + 1 guest – all must be traveling on the day of entry on a flight marketed and operated by a oneworld airline.
Passengers traveling in Business Class on the day of entry on a flight marketed and operated by a oneworld airline
JAL premium Economy Class ticket holders (excluding upgrades to PE at the airport)
JAL Full Fare Economy Class (Y) ticket holders

The JAL Sakura Business Class lounge is open daily between 05:30 and 22:30

The JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge

Both JAL lounges at Frankfurt airport share the same entrance diagonally opposite the security lines fro the D-gates.

JAL lounge entrance Frankfurt T2

As the sign outside the lounge showed, this was the lounge for all the oneworld airlines.

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

Just inside the main sliding doors to the lounge is the reception desk where the agents check boarding passes and filter passengers to the correct lounge – left for Business Class and right for First Class.

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

My oneworld status grants me entry to the JAL First Class lounge but, as that lounge doesn’t open until 4pm and I had arrived shortly after 2pm, I was invited to turn left and head inside the Sakura lounge.

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

A short hallway leads into the lounge proper but, before you get to the main area, there’s a small alcove on the left where guests can store luggage in lockable lockers.

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

The lounge is essentially set out as a square with a variety of seating options placed in different parts of the room.

A you enter the main part of the Sakura lounge the food and beverage area is on the right……

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

…while the rest of the lounge opens up ahead.

The left side of the square has seating like this:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

The centre section is mainly filled with seating like this……

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

….although the far end of the center section has a set of more relaxing armchairs:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

Towards the right side of the lounge are more chairs and tables set out for two people each….

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

…..while on the far right, and next to the only windows the lounge has, are a 4 – 5 pretty comfortable (and reasonably private) loungers:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

The good news here was that not only were these chairs very comfortable but they also had access to power outlets (my experiences tell me that, often, the more comfortable lounge chairs are the furthest away from any kind of power source) so this is where I spent my time in the lounge.

The lounge doesn’t offer that much in terms of work areas and I didn’t see any PCs or Macs that guests could use. There was a bench against the left side wall which acted as a multi-person desk while a small alcove on the same side of the lounge provided the same:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

WiFi was free and mostly ok….although the signal was weak on the left side of the lounge.

The power outlets I saw were all of the European 2-pin variety so expect to need an adapter if you’re visiting from the US, Australia or the UK.

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

The Food & Drink Options

As I mentioned towards the beginning of this review, the main food and drink area is just on the right as you enter the lounge…..

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

…but it didn’t hold anything to get excited about.

Drinks

There was a coffee maker which made reasonable coffee:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

A selection of teas:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

A drinks fridge with a selection of sodas, juices and beer:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

And a selection of spirits and wines split between this area and a table on the left side of the lounge:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

The spirits selection was average for a non-US Business Class lounge but the wine selection was poor and heavily biased towards German wines (no, I’m not saying those two things are related so don’t write in!)

Food

If the alcoholic drinks selection was average then the food followed suit.

From a cold food standpoint there was a small supply of mini-sandwiches…..

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

…and the hot selection was limited to mini chicken meatballs, mini vegetable meatballs, tomato soup and frankfurters (obviously!):

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

I have to admit to finding the frankfurters pretty tasty and dangerously addictive but, while the chicken meatballs were ok, the veggie ones weren’t good at all.

I was a little surprised that the lounge didn’t appear to offer a salad option of any kind – usually an easy and cheap option for a lounge to offer.

All in all “average” sums up the food and drink offering pretty well.

Thoughts

I clearly visited the lounge at one of the slower times of day as there were very few visitors and a lot of empty seats. I suspect the lounge may get a bit more crowded closer to a JAL departure time but I didn’t get to find out as I moved on to the First Class lounge when that opened up at 4pm.

If I didn’t have access to my pictures and someone was to ask me to describe the color palette of the lounge I’d probably describe it as Bandaid beige – there was something very bland about the colors and the decor of the Sakura lounge and, although the seating I tried was comfortable enough, the place felt a bit like a hospital waiting room.

The food and drinks were average (the wine selection and lack of salad option let the lounge down) but the staff that I encountered were certainly very friendly.

There was, however, one particular aspect of the lounge that I LOVED…and it was this:

JAL Sakura Business Class Lounge Frankfurt

JAL provides a “phone room” just next to the reception desk so there’s little excuse not to adhere to the rule.

Oh how I wish all lounges insisted that self-important blowhards yell down their phones outside – a great rule for a lounge to have and one I applaud JAL for introducing in Frankfurt.

Overall the JAL Sakura lounge is perfectly ok place to spend a bit of time before your flight (certainly better than waiting at a gate) but it’s no more than that.

More lounge reviews available, arranged by city, on the Traveling For Miles lounge review page

Up Next: A review of the JAL First Class Lounge at Frankfurt Terminal 2