Paris CDG terminal 1 has a rather unusual layout. The circular-shaped terminal with its satellite terminal buildings is divided into a Schengen area and a non-Schengen area (which is perhaps nothing unusual as such) but as the terminal space is so limited some facilities of interest to Schengen passengers are in fact located in the non-Schengen area, such as some of the pay-in lounges, and this has been the case for many years.
One such example is the Star Alliance Lounge in terminal 1, which is located in the non-Schengen area. Since 2016 it is also accessible with a Priority Pass card, with some exceptions during the day when the lounge is simply too busy and they need to prioritise passengers who fly in first class or business class or have a Star Alliance Gold card.
Getting to and from the Star Alliance Lounge flying to a Schengen destination
Getting to the Star Alliance Lounge requires passing through passport control (security always takes place at the gate in terminal 1, irrespective of destination) and if you travel to a Schengen destination it means you will need to pass through passport control twice. Once to get to the non-Schengen area, and once to get from the non-Schengen area back to the Schengen area.
This is what it says on the Priority Pass webpage:
Passengers traveling within Schengen countries are required to show a Boarding Pass with confirmed same day travel as well as a valid membership card (access remains subject to the discretion of the French Border Police).
In the past this has generally never been an issue, at least not if you have a passport from a country in the European Union. You simply showed your passport, boarding pass and the lounge card to the officer at passport control and explained why you wanted to pass and they would pretty much always let you through without a comment.
But today, in March 2019, I was denied doing just that. There are automatic passport gates available if you have a machine-readable EU-passport, but they were all busy so I was directed to one of the manned desks, where I was refused entry.
I speak French so I had a brief conversation with the passport control officer, who seemed somewhat annoyed with all my questions but who nevertheless was professional and answered my questions, but stood his grounds. He explained they had been instructed not to let people pass to visit a lounge when flying to a Schengen destination. The only exception is passengers flying on Aegean Airlines, the Greek airline, obviously travelling to a destination in Greece, which is in the Schengen area. The reason for this is that Aegean Airlines have contracted the Star Alliance Lounge.
I mentioned this has been possible in the past but the new rules are apparently strict and the officer was not prepared (and probably not allowed) to make any kind of exceptions. Presumably this has to do with the current situation in France with riots and a high terror alert. They simply want to minimise the people passing the border unless there is a valid reason for it.
So if you plan on visiting the Star Alliance Lounge at Paris CDG, either using Priority Pass or because you fly on for example SAS or Lufthansa and are eligible for lounge access per Star Alliance rules, you can always try your luck. As it says on the Priority Pass webpage, “access remains subject to the discretion of the French Border Police”. But just be prepared you may be turned away and plan accordingly.
And of course the same should apply if you want to visit the Icare Lounge, a third-party and pay-in lounge in the non-Schengen area, also part of the Priority Pass program.
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