Trip Report: Turin Airport Piemonte Lounge and Vueling A320 TRN-BCN

Turin has a little airport, though it’s actually almost an hour away from the city center by bus. By contrast, the much larger Milan-Malpensa airport with both regional and intercontinental flights is two hours away by bus, so one may want to consider that airport too, when making plans for Turin.

For this trip, the combination of a flight from Turin to Barcelona, and then train from Barcelona to Valencia worked out to be much better in terms of price, as well as timing, since we’d have a good half day in Turin to explore before heading back.

Turin airport does have a Priority Pass lounge, the Piemonte Lounge, located airside on the upper level. When I entered around 3pm on a Sunday, it wasn’t crowded at all, with plenty of seating available. I especially liked the floor-to-ceiling windows with views to the runway, in the sitting area to the right as you enter.

And in the sitting area to the left as you enter, besides views of the airplanes, there were also gorgeous views of the Alps!

Between these two sitting areas was the bar. Like other Italian airport lounges, here you could get an espresso freshly made by the bartender. But curiously, all drinks had to be ordered from the bartender, even water, which comes served in a flimsy plastic cup. Which is disposed of every time you want a refill…

There was a surprisingly bountiful buffet, with cooked vegetables, sandwiches, pasta, pizza. They were all room temperature, and I think the idea was that you would heat up the food in a little toaster oven to the right of the buffet.

I of course had to have my final espresso macchiato before leaving Italy!

I also picked up a few pastries. I thought the two in front were sweet biscuits, but they were savory. And since I hadn’t heated them up, the cheese was all congealed. The blueberry cake in the back was good though, quite tender.

From inside the lounge, I caught sight of the Vueling Airbus A320 that just landed, preparing to offload passengers and pick us up for the trip back to Spain.

On Vueling, we didn’t purchase Priority Boarding, but we were among the first half of passengers to board, so we made it on with our rollaboard suitcases.

My last time flying Vueling, I must have been on an older aircraft, because thick padding made for a very cramped experience, with long armrests impeding getting in and out of the row. This time, the plane looked pretty new, with ultra-slim seats that appear identical to Lufthansa’s and Swiss’s seats on narrow-body aircraft.

Lacking the recline function meant that the seat back tables were a simple hinged affair (rather than those telescoping arms that come out of the base of the seat). There were still seat pockets, and the seat back was mercifully devoid of the Ryanair plastic safety information.

Bye Piemonte! Taking off, it was easy to see that the countryside around Turin was quite green. Everyone in Turin recommended taking time to visit the surrounding areas, to get a different flavor of the region.

Sitting on the right side of the airplane, I was lucky to get a final view of Turin itself! The sky was a bit hazy, but I could make out the long rectangle of the Porta Nuova Station, the big Piazza Castello Square, and if I zoom in the picture, I can make out the Mole Antonelliana!