New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge Review: Korean Air & Asiana Business Lounge in Sapporo, Japan

New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge Review: Korean Air & Asiana Business Lounge in Sapporo, Japan

After wrapping up my Sapporo trip, I stopped by the Asiana Airlines business lounge at New Chitose Airport on my way home— the Royal Lounge. Here’s my review.

Royal Lounge
987-22 Bibi, Chitose, Hokkaido 066-0012, Japan

  1. New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge location

  2. Who can use it

  3. Inside the lounge

  4. Food and drinks

I’ll walk you through it in that order.

Royal Lounge location

The Royal Lounge, a business lounge at New Chitose Airport in Sapporo, is located directly across from Gate 69.

Just take the dedicated Royal Lounge escalator or elevator up.

Eligibility and how to enter

The Royal Lounge is not a lounge you can access with a Priority Pass—and the same goes for THE LOUNGE app.

This lounge is only for passengers flying with the airlines shown in the photo in business class, or travelers holding elite status with those airlines.That’s who can get in.

Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, which many Korean travelers use, are both included.

For reference, if you want to use a Priority Pass or THE LOUNGE app, you’ll need to go to the lounge called Royal Host instead.

You can enter after they check your ticket at the entrance.

Inside the lounge

Right after you walk in, there’s a restroom, a nursing room, and phone booths. Since this is a business lounge that doesn’t accept Priority Pass, it never felt crowded, and the whole space was really calm and comfortable.

The lounge itself is also quite spacious. There are lots of different seating options, and plenty of them are genuinely comfortable.

There are also tons of seats with charging outlets, so it works well if you need to catch up on work before your flight.

There are even separate business rooms and relaxing rooms, which makes it easy to rest quietly without interruptions before boarding.

We used it with our 15-month-old baby, and aside from the nursing room, I didn’t notice any other baby-specific facilities or high chairs.

We had already eaten a bowl of ramen at Ramen Street in the domestic terminal before coming over, so food wasn’t a huge priority for us—but the selection was better than I expected, and it was actually pretty good.

Food and drinks

Check the slides for the full food selection.

They had Sapporo-style miso ramen, soup curry, and other Sapporo-style Japanese dishes, and honestly, I kind of wished I had just eaten ramen here instead.

The corn butter ramen I had in the domestic terminal was seriously, unbelievably bad.

Besides that, there were easy meal options like fried rice, chicken, meatballs, and omelets, plus some bread and desserts.

I was especially happy to see the ice cream machine. Sapporo is known for its dairy, and this ice cream was rich, dense, and creamy—honestly not far off from the milk ice cream I bought outside. It was delicious.

There was also a good variety of soft drinks,

and they even had a Sapporo Classic draft beer machine, so if you like beer, this New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge is definitely satisfying.

There’s a sake corner too.

We spent about 40 to 50 minutes in the New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge before boarding, and because there were so many comfortable seats and the space felt open and roomy, we were able to relax and let our child play comfortably before heading to the gate.

Overall, the food was solid across the board, and the beer was, of course, excellent.

New Chitose Airport has so much to see and plenty of shopping, so I already recommend getting there early—but if you’ve booked business class, you should absolutely make time for the New Chitose Airport Royal Lounge too. Arrive early and enjoy the lounge before your flight.

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