Review: Baku Business Class Lounge

Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport is a beautiful airport serving as Azerbaijan’s main gateway.

It is a relatively small airport with a handful of lounges. But strangely enough, this lounge itself is not specifically listed on the airports site.

To be clear, this is not a AZAL Business Class Lounge, the lounge of the national carrier, but is the other main Business Class lounge for the airport’s other carriers and simply named “Business Class Lounge” – imaginative!!

Around Baku Airport

Baku’s new Terminal 1 boasts beautiful architecture with trees inside, so it is certainly not an airport where you feel like you need a lounge to get some peace and quite

After check-in you will end up upstairs post security.

The semi-transparent roof and slanted glass side panels means it is flooded with natural light almost everywhere..

Baku Business Class Lounge Location & Access

The lounge is located on the 4th floor where you will go past some beautiful duty free shops..

And then some rather interesting oak-veneer “cocoons”, some of which are duty free shops and others eating places..

Access /Eligibility

This lounge is not open to any lounge network such as Priority or DragonPass etc.

At the time of publishing, it is open to Business Class and top Tier status holders of Air Astana, China Southern, flyDubai, Jazeera Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Lot Airlines, Rossiya Airlines, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, and Uzbekistan Airlines.

I was flying with Turkish Airlines, and specifically got a Lounge Card at check-in.

Baku Business Class Lounge Layout

This lounge is not especially big – I’d say it has enough seating for around 100 people…

What is interesting is, much like the airport itself, it is a circular space, with glass that enables you to look out not just to the rest of the terminal but even out to the apron in far distance..

It’s an elegantly designed space with classy and comfortable furnishings

You will find a few spots where you can sit facing out into the terminal for a little bit more privacy..

Roughly, about one third of the seating seems to have accessible charging points. There also some rather odd small stools around equally small tables dotted around the place, and it’s not quite clear who they are designed for…

They look like kids play things, but perhaps maybe for adults too!?

As is customary, there are some magazines and newspapers in a couple of places..

In one of the internal sides, there is a cool wine bottle display..

You will also find a bar area in the lounge – however, do not go sit there waiting for the barman, its self-service! This is something they need to make more obvious !

Here you will find a good selection of soft drinks as well as well as wines and liqueurs

Baku Business Class Lounge Food

The lounge has a decent range of light bites as well as a couple of hot dishes – which at the time were some kind of chicken casserole and a pasta dish. There were also a good selection of salads, cheeses and sweet treats.

Unfortunately, I forgot to capture any pictures of the food, as by the time I checked it out, there were several people preparing their lunch selection and I forgot to come back later for it.

Overall Thoughts

This is a decent lounge, with a nice atmosphere. One thing I did mentally note was after the reception part, I only saw 2 staff very briefly, so it at time felt almost disserted.

One key feature missing was any showers within the lounge! Though the restrooms were well appointed otherwise.

For a Business Class specific lounge, the food or drink offering did not feel all that impressive, as that level of catering can be found in some of the good contract lounges like Aspire or No1 Lounges. I’ve not been to any of the Priority Pass lounges there to see how they compared. I imagine, it would mostly just be a nicer atmosphere.