Madrid – Cibeles Airport Lounge

I had an early morning flight from Terminal 1 at Madrid airport and I noticed that the airside lounge was open 24 hours a day. This suggested to me that the security process also didn’t close at night, so at 02:00 I tried to get through security, and I was allowed through. The entire security process took under a minute, an efficiency that I appreciated at that time of the morning.

The lounge is located in the non-Schengen area of Terminal 1, but I see no reason why anyone on a Schengen flight can’t go through as there are one-way exit doors back to the main part of the terminal. It just means going through the customs check at the airport. The lounge is then situated near to Gate B26 by going in the lift to the second floor.

Technically access to the lounge is only allowed three hours before the flight, but I tried four hours before, just in case. The staff member was friendly and helpful, and scanned my Priority Pass app, saying that the early arrival was fine.

It was clear that my entry didn’t cause any issues in terms of lounge capacity, as I was the only passenger in there. There was to be only one other person in the lounge during the three hours that I remained there, so it’s clearly not a busy lounge in the early morning.

There were numerous different types of seating area, including comfortable low chairs, and some at tables. There were a large number of power outlets, located by most of the tables.

The lounge is large in size and there are toilets inside the lounge, so passengers don’t need to go back into the main terminal. There was also a reasonable selection of magazines and newspapers, in a range of languages.

There is a large central bar which contains food and drink, with refrigerated chillers located along its length. There were self-pour wines and spirits, as well as a decent range of soft drinks, and I was pleased with the chilled lemon Fanta. There were lots of different teas and also some flavoured waters. There was also a Nespresso machine, and unusually, there were very clear instructions on how to use it and a description of the four capsules that were available.

The fridges contains a few different types of yoghurt, around eight different types of sandwiches and some pre-cut fruit options of apple and pineapple. The sandwiches were a little bland, but the chicken and mustard one wasn’t too bad.

The pastry selection, of which I tried valiantly to make my way through on my own, but without entire success. I noticed that at lunch and in the evening that there were cooked meals available, with some of the options looking quite tempting.

There were also breads, jams, cereals and other options to choose from.

I like the lounge, it was spotlessly clean and the staff member at the reception desk was helpful. I think customers with the appropriate status from Sky Team and Star Alliance can use the lounge, but on this occasion I used my Priority Pass.