American Airlines and Iberia jointly operate their own lounge facility in Buenos Aires. As an airline-operated lounge, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, the reality was somewhat different.

American Airlines Iberia Lounge Buenos Aires Access

Despite being relatively small, Buenos Aires Ezeiza has quite a few lounge options to choose from. The American Airlines Iberia Lounge is located after security, close to gate 9. Once you’ve been through passport control, it only takes around five minutes to reach the lounge, which is located on level 2.

You’ll be able to access the lounge if you’re flying with a oneworld airline in business class, or if you hold oneworld Sapphire or Emerald status. We were travelling with British Airways to Rio de Janeiro, and were directed to use this lounge. Iberia have a strong focus on Buenos Aires, with 17 flights to the city each week from Madrid. Additionally, American Airlines operate daily flights to both New York and Miami.

The American Airlines Iberia Lounge is open daily from 6:30am to 21:00pm.

American Airlines Iberia Lounge Buenos Aires Space & Interior

I really like the American Airlines Admirals Lounge in São Paulo. I was expecting that the American Airlines Iberia Lounge in Buenos Aires would offer a similar sort of experience. Unfortunately, it became apparent pretty quickly that this wasn’t to be the case. Firstly, it’s much smaller. Secondly, it’s not in the best of conditions. The space looks dated, and the overall design looks like it needs a refresh.

Essentially, the lounge is one open space, with a few different seating types. None of which are particularly comfortable. We were visiting at around 10:30am, and the lounge was about a third full. Even so, it felt considerably less pleasant than the Centurion Lounge, which we’d visited immediately before.

Perhaps because the lounge itself isn’t particularly big, there has been no attempt to try and create different spaces or zones. Overall, it lacks any sort of personality.

There’s a small business area, although I can’t imagine this gets a huge amount of use.

In addition, the lounge has its own bathroom facilities, including showers. These were actually really well maintained, and for all its faults, the lounge was at least very clean.

Food and Drinks at the American Airlines Iberia Lounge Buenos Aires

The lounge has a small self-serve buffet. The food options aren’t particularly impressive though. The only warm options were either empanadas or a croque monsieur. The empanadas were really bad, and nothing like the ones you’d get in the main city.

There were also some cold options, including cold cuts, open sandwiches, breads and olives.

If you prefer something sweeter, there is an ice cream fridge! And actually, this is probably the best option you’ll find in the lounge if you want something to eat.

The drinks selection was slightly better. There were a variety of soft drinks to choose from, as well as mid-range spirits and a couple of different wines.

Overall, the selection was inferior to the Centurion Lounge. This surprised me, as I would have expected the options at this lounge to have been better, particularly as an airline-operated space.

Conclusions

Overall, I found the American Airlines Iberia Lounge Buenos Aires disappointing. It’s well below the standard of the American Airlines lounge in São Paulo and a downgrade compared to the Centurion Lounge. In fact, I thought this was a worse lounge than the domestic AMAE Lounge Aeroparque Buenos Aires.

The whole space feels like it needs a refresh, which is a shame as it could be be transformed into something much better. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t make a special effort to visit this lounge again.