Lounge review: China Eastern Airlines International VIP Lounge at Shanghai Hongqiao (SHA)

Hello from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, the original airport of Shanghai (and the one that’s closer to the center of Shanghai). It’s primarily used for domestic flights these days, but it also hosts a limited number of short-haul international flights, such as ones to Tokyo–Haneda.

I flew JAL out of Hongqiao Terminal 1 to Haneda for the first leg of my journey back home to the United States. Had I flown out of Shanghai Pudong International Airport, I would’ve been able to enjoy the famous Cathay Pacific lounge. Instead, I chose to fly out of a more convenient airport.

Anyway, I was expecting to use a mediocre Priority Pass lounge operated by the airport because JAL doesn’t have any of its own lounges in Hongqiao. Furthermore, since Hongqiao was mostly a domestic airport, I was not expecting there to be any good lounges in the international section of the airport.

However, it turns out JAL and China Eastern Airlines have a partnership for their Shanghai to Tokyo route. Part of this benefit means JAL business class passengers and JAL/oneworld elites, who are all entitled to lounge access, get to use China Eastern’s international lounge at Hongqiao Terminal 1.

When checking in for my flight, I was handed a guest lounge card to allow me to the lounge.

First impressions

When I walked into the lounge, I was already blown away. Instead of a small lounge with a few snacks and crappy chairs, I found there to be a huge space. The below picture makes it seem like a small lounge, but behind the partitions on the left side is a space that’s about 3x bigger than what you see in the picture. (Plus, there’s another section in the back—more on that later.) The bar area was right here and in addition to providing the obvious beer and wine selections, they provided a few basic cocktails, like a Moscow Mule and a margarita.

Here’s a wide angle photo of the same angle. On the left side, you’ll see the walkway to the back of this room (3x bigger than what you see here).

To the side are windows looking directly out to the tarmac and even the runway. There are four lounge chairs over here that you can use. Being one of the first people to enter the lounge, I quickly took one.

Shower

I always get sweaty walking in the airport. I was pleased to find out there were shower facilities in this lounge. I just had to try it out—half because of curiosity, but also half because I was sweaty and wanted to be clean for my flight.

To use a shower room, you go to the front desk, give them your boarding pass as collateral, and then they give you a key to a shower room. It looked like they had 4 or 5 shower rooms available for use.

I got inside and was instantly impressed. The room was modern and came with amenities like a dental kit (featuring a toothbrush and toothpaste), a shower cap, Listerine mouthwash, and a vanity kit with Q-tips (cotton swabs) and other things.

To the left of the sink was the toilet. It was very clean.

They also provided towels and shower slippers wrapped in a plastic bag, indicating they were clean and sanitized.

At the back of the shower room is, surprise surprise, the shower!

Pretty snazzy, right?

I then took a closer look at the shampoo, conditioner, and body wash they provided. While they weren’t using any famous western brands, they seemed to be of pretty good quality. The English name of the brand is “Adolph”. I imagine this cannot be sold in any part of Europe, the Americas, or Australia without seriously raising eyebrows.

Anyway, other than the questionable name of the haircare products, the whole shower experience was very enjoyable. I would highly recommend it.

Food

When I was a child, I flew on China Eastern Airlines four times and hated the experience. Back then, their aircraft had no in-seat entertainment screen, which was miserable for a child with no electronic devices. The service quality was not particularly memorable either. (The flight attendants weren’t bad though. One of them told me I had to lose weight, but anyway, I digress.) Given that my past experiences on China Eastern Airlines were less than impressive, I was expecting a mediocre snack bar at best. Instead, I was blown away by the buffet selection they had.

This was the dining room in the back of the lounge. This was a completely different room from the pictures above. Note how they had the island counter on the left and another counter in the back. The front of the island counter contained dishes like fried rice, bok choy, chow mein noodles, and other delicious Chinese dishes. The back of the island counter had fruits and other cold things like salad, cold cuts, cheese, etc. The back counter (at the windows) had Chinese staples like soup noodles, congee, steamed baozi, etc.

Here’s a closer look at that.

Behind the island counter was the wine bar, coffee, and juice.

Additionally, to the side is the cold drinks fridge. The selection was very full-featured and included both an alcoholic and non-alcoholic selection.

I took a good selection of stuff from the buffet.

I took it back to my seat (on a tray) and enjoyed reclining on the seat while enjoying the view of the tarmac.

I also took a bottle of Wahaha water to drink at my seat. This is a famous brand of water in China and I hadn’t enjoyed it at all on this trip to China… until now

I even spotted some planes taking off on the runway!

Final thoughts

I came to Hongqiao Airport expecting a few hours of boredom. Instead, I was surprised about my access to a lounge in an entirely different airline alliance (China Eastern is in SkyTeam while JAL is in oneworld). Thanks to the modern and sleek sitting area, great shower facilities, and amazing food selection and quality, I can safely say I found it to be one of the best lounges I’ve had the privilege of using. I’d highly recommend flying either China Eastern internationally out of Hongqiao or JAL out of Hongqiao.