Lounge Review: Cathay Pacific Lounge Penang Airport (PEN)

The Penang airport is a pretty nice airport. They advertise having free wifi, and there are lots of USB charging stations. It’s not a particularly large airport, so it doesn’t take too long to get to the gates either.

On this trip, I stopped by the Cathay Pacific lounge prior to my departure. All of the lounges are on the second level.

The Cathay Pacific lounge is small, but functional. Cathay (or more specifically Dragonair) operates two flights a day out of Penang to Hong Kong, so it was busy right before departure although never felt overcrowded. This is maybe not surprising to other people, but it really did seem like most everyone in the lounge was traveling for business. Perhaps to cater to that, I appreciated that there were power outlets everywhere! Each of the small stands/tables between seats had two outlets.

There were a variety of foods on offer for breakfast: congee, some hot food items (e.g. pancakes, fried rice), some cold items (e.g. salad, pastries, sandwiches), and some packaged food. I generally feel like I can identify most foods that you might encounter in a lounge, but what I thought was syrup most definitely was not syrup, and the apparently vegetarian fried rice actually had dried fish in it. So you might want to ask a lounge attendant about the specifics of the food if you have any allergies.

The bathroom situation was two single standalone rooms. This wasn’t great for a relatively busy lounge. Given that probably 90% of the lounge occupants were male, I wouldn’t feel bad using the women’s restroom if you’re a guy.

Overall, this is a small but functional lounge. There’s some food, plenty of outlets, and wifi. One note was that the wifi was slower than the free T-mobile connection I had on my phone.