Gatwick South Terminal lounges: all six, compared

Four pay-per-use lounges serve the South Terminal, three of them No1 Lounges brands and the fourth, Club Aspire, a joint venture the same operator sells. British Airways adds two airline lounges of its own, which makes this the terminal for status flyers: BA and its oneworld partners board here. The table shows each bookable room with the operator's own starting price; the BA pair, which money cannot book, gets its own section below.

Operator-direct starting prices and hours. Prices move with demand and differ by booking channel.

The wider comparison, including how this set stacks against the North Terminal's five bookable rooms and its Emirates lounge, sits at every Gatwick lounge; flying from the other side, start with the North Terminal lounge guide instead. Lounges are airside, so the choice locks with your terminal: confirm which terminal your airline uses before booking a room your boarding pass cannot reach.

Clearing security at South leaves you on the lounge level already. The mezzanine wraps above the main departure lounge floor, and every lounge door opens off it; the mistake to avoid is riding the escalators down into the shops first, because you will only have to come back up. Reviews and the operators' own directions walk it consistently: take the corridor to the left as you leave security, and My Lounge and Club Aspire come up first (Club Aspire's directions place it between the WHSmith and the sunglasses shop), with No1 Lounge and Clubrooms sharing a short corridor at the far end and the British Airways entrance on the same level, reached by lift. Shop landmarks shift with refits, but the level does not: if you are among the boarding-gate screens and perfume counters, you are one floor too low.

Once you know your gate is a different question: what surrounds the mezzanine, from the restaurants below it to the walk times out to the piers, is mapped in the South Terminal guide.

No1 Lounge runs the same offer at South as at North: a hot and cold buffet, a tended bar pouring wines, beers and spirits, runway views and seating built for everyone from solo laptops to hen parties in transit. Entry is £40 direct, the day runs 04:00 to 21:00 (jointly the longest at the airport with Clubrooms next door), infants under two go free, and the operator's standard mechanics apply: three hours from your entry slot, extra hours sold in advance, and delay cover on direct bookings that holds your seat until the flight leaves.

One honest note: travellers who know both airports' No1 rooms tend to rate the South one a shade below its North twin, mostly on space when the terminal is at full holiday stretch. It remains the sensible default for a first lounge visit, and the full No1 Lounge review weighs the two rooms side by side, including when the £2 saving at My Lounge is the better spend.

My Lounge, £38 and open 04:00 to 20:00, is the loft-styled casual room: grazing-menu food, help-yourself drinks with a mix-your-own cocktail station, a games room, and the feature no other lounge in the airport can copy, an outdoor terrace with runway views. It is Gatwick's only open-air lounge space, and because smoking is permitted out there, it is also the only place airside at either terminal where a smoker can light up; for some travellers that fact alone decides the booking. Infants under two go free, and direct bookings carry the same delay cover as the rest of the No1 family.

Inside, the room reads younger and louder than No1 next door, which is the point: sofas over armchairs, board games over broadsheets. Families with children past the pushchair stage tend to get more from it than from anywhere else on the mezzanine. The My Lounge review covers both terminals' rooms, terrace included.

Clubrooms South is the adults-only room, open to travellers aged 12 and over from 06:00 to 21:00, which makes it the latest-closing lounge at Gatwick and the natural pick for the evening wave. The format is hosted table service rather than a buffet: a waiter takes orders from an extended complimentary menu, cocktails included, in private seating that stays conversation-quiet even in August.

The £44 price includes Fast Track security, which sells separately from £6, so the arithmetic lands the same way it does at North: No1 at £40 plus its own queue-skip pass costs £46, £2 more than the calmer room with a waiter. For two adults on an evening departure it is the strongest booking on this side of the airport; for anyone travelling with younger children it is simply unavailable, and the money goes to My Lounge or Club Aspire instead.

Club Aspire is the cheapest lounge entry at Gatwick, from £34 direct, and one of the few where the operator's own price beat the airport channel on the day this page was researched (£34 against £36). The room delivers the essentials: a buffet with hot and cold dishes, a tended bar, quiet zones, and at breakfast a build-your-own muffin station and a pancake machine that gets more affectionate reviews than some entire lounges. Infants under two go free, and entry follows the standard three-hour window.

Two caveats earn their place here. The 06:00 to 19:00 day is the shortest on the mezzanine, so an evening flight rules it out entirely; check your boarding time before paying. And the room has had a stop-start life, opening in September 2019, closing six months later when the pandemic emptied the terminal, and reopening only in March 2023, so older reviews describe a lounge that effectively no longer exists. Judge it on post-2023 accounts, which have been solid for the price.

British Airways keeps two lounges behind one shared entrance on the same mezzanine, reached by lift after security. The Club lounge takes business-class passengers, whether Club Europe short-haul or Club World long-haul, plus British Airways Club Silver members and oneworld Sapphire card holders, each with one guest. The First lounge, the smaller room off the shared entrance, takes British Airways Club Gold and oneworld Emerald with a guest apiece. No cash price exists for either door, and since BA schedules no first-class cabin from Gatwick, the First lounge operates in practice as the status room rather than a cabin perk.

For BA passengers the practical questions are edge cases: which tier covers which room on a mixed booking, what happens on a oneworld codeshare, and whether the guest rule stretches to children. The BA lounge guide works through them, along with what the rooms are actually like inside. For everyone else the takeaway is simpler: a BA boarding pass in economy without status opens neither door, and the four bookable lounges above are the alternatives.

Priority Pass opens all four pay-per-use doors at South: No1 Lounge, My Lounge and Club Aspire directly, and Clubrooms against an additional fee; it is the rare terminal where the scheme covers the whole bookable set. Entry stays space-permitting, and the South mezzanine fills fast on school-holiday mornings, so the pre-booked slot the No1-family lounges sell members for a small fee is cheap insurance. Bank schemes built on LoungeKey or DragonPass broadly mirror the roster, and American Express Platinum's programme includes Club Aspire; check the scheme's own Gatwick list before counting on any of them.

Paying cash, compare the two official channels before booking, because their floors differ by lounge: on the day checked, the airport's own lounge booking page listed No1 at £38 and My Lounge at £34, below No1 Lounges' own site, while Club Aspire ran cheaper direct. The gaps move daily and rarely exceed a few pounds a head, but on a family booking they cover the coffees. Airlines without their own lounge here typically contract one of these four for business-class passengers; the airline's confirmation email names which.

Start from the clock. For the 06:00 to 08:00 departure bank only No1 and My Lounge are open, both from 04:00, and the choice is a tended bar against the terrace and games room. From 06:00 all four doors trade, and the field sorts by temperament: Clubrooms for quiet and table service, Club Aspire for the lowest price, No1 for the full standard package, My Lounge for families, smokers and anyone who wants daylight. For evening flights the closes decide it: Club Aspire is gone by 19:00 and My Lounge by 20:00, leaving No1 and Clubrooms trading until 21:00, after which the South Terminal, like the North, has no lounge open and the bars downstairs take over.

Time the three-hour window from clearing the security queue, not from the drop-off kerb, and remember the window runs to your boarding time, not your take-off time. If the sums say an hour in a lounge, spend the money downstairs instead; the mezzanine will still be there on a longer trip.