Review: American Airlines Flagship Lounge Chicago O'Hare Airport (ORD)

I recently transited through ORD on my way back from Asia, and–to my surprise–I was handed an invitation to the Flagship lounge when I went to the Admirals Club. I am clearly a bad travel blogger for 1) not keeping up with AA’s Flagship lounge renovations and 2) not knowing what the access rules are (international first and business class on oneworld gets access; JFK-LAX/SFO transcon business and first class gets access; AA Platinum and up get access on international itineraries on oneworld airlines; oneworld Sapphire and Emerald and Concierge Key get access on oneworld itineraries).

In general, lounges in the US aren’t great. Particularly lounges run by US airlines. So I wasn’t expecting much when I entered. But I was very pleasantly surprised. The lounge was spacious, had plenty of seating, had lots of power outlets, had nice shower rooms, and had extensive food and beverage options.

I’m not a big drinker, but the alcohol selection in this lounge was pretty extensive. Even though it was only 10am when I arrived, I was tempted to crack open a beer.

The food selection was also quite impressive for a US lounge. There were lots of hot food options for breakfast, including an omelet station, eggs, bacon, potatoes, a lot of different baked goods, and steel-cut oatmeal. Although I hate on dragon fruit, I am shocked that they had dragon fruit given how expensive it is in the US (and it was actually pretty decent as far as white dragon fruit goes!). I believe they have sushi because of Japan Airlines, but the sushi was not very good, although the rest of the food I tried was reasonably good for airport lounge food.