Lufthansa has rolled out a new pilot program that will test the the ability of using smartphones and their bluetooth technology as a ‘key’ to gain entry into LH Lounges.

The trial began on October 27 specifically at the BUSINESS CLASS LOUNGE located near gate A26 in Frankfurt.    Passengers who have downloaded the Easy Access app from their respective App Stores will now have the ability to simply tap their phone to a tablet next to the Lounge Entrance and have the doors automatically open.

No longer will passengers have to stay in line outside the lounge while passengers fumble to find their boarding passes or frequent flyer cards.  Nor will they have to wait in that line while the Lounge Attendant explains time and time again to passengers in the line as to why their economy class ticket on Aeroflot doesn’t give them the ability to enter the Lounge.

Remember, the trial ONLY COVERS the Business Class Lounge near Gate A26 in Frankfurt.  Nowhere else at this point.   If the trials go well, I suspect this will be expanded to cover other lounges in the network.

In order for the process to work, you’ll have to install both the Lufthansa app as well as the Easy Access app.   The 2 will coordinate their data and using the bluetooth function on your phone, allow you to communicate with the Tablet at the ‘A26 Lounge’.    You can find both Apps in your App Store by searching for Lufthansa and Easy Access.

I’m not sure why they are going to all the trouble of a separate app and requiring bluetooth technology in order for everything to work.   I would think it would have been a lot easier to use an existing Electronic Boarding Pass that contains the ‘QR Bar Code Square’ that is scanned when boarding a flight.   It seems that it would be easier to have that kind of a scanner at Lounge Door and allow passengers simply to use their Electronic Boarding Pass as the key to the lounge.    After all, it’s what the lounge attendants are currently using when checking in guests.   But as they say in my neighbor, it’s not my circus and it’s not my monkey so I don’t have any insights to the decisions!

At the end of the day, it’s still a far better way to bypass the sometimes long lines when trying to get into a Lounge.

To learn more about this new initiative, please visit www.LH.com/easyaccess.