Airport Experience® News - Pre-Conference Issue 2026

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HOSPITALITY EVOLUTION Plaza Premium Group Adds Services And Choices To Appeal To Future Travelers

BY CAROL WARD

ditor’s Note: Plaza Premium Group is a longtime player in the global common-use lounge space and has expanded its offerings to include a range of services designed to ease the traveler journey from curb to gate. In North America, PPG has a strong presence in Canadian airports and is growing its footprint in prominent U.S. airports. Jonathan Song, chief commercial officer, and Pascal Bélanger, senior vice president, Americas, met with AXN’s Carol Ward to discuss the way forward for PPG and the airport hospitality industry. E

WARD: To set the stage, can you give me an overview of Plaza Premium Group’s current lounge count, plus any new lounges coming on stream in North America in the next 6-12 months? SONG; Sure, and it’s not just lounges. We’ve expanded and evolved, especially over the past 10 years, into a global airport hospitality company. We have multiple verticals within our portfolio. We have our airport lounge vertical, our airport meet-and-greet and concierge vertical, our airport hotel vertical and our airport dining vertical. We’ve also deployed a lot of our own proprietary technology. Currently, we operate in over 90 international airports. Within North America, we have operations in Dallas Fort Worth International (DFW), where we have our existing Plaza Premium lounges in Terminal E and we’ll be expanding into Terminal D as well. We also run the meet and greet services in DFW. We have Plaza Premium lounge operations in MCO [ Orlando International Airport ], in the South Terminal. We recently were awarded a project in JFK [ John F. Kennedy International Airport] , in the New Terminal One , which we’re very excited about.

We have extensive operations in airports across Canada, from Toronto to Vancouver to Edmonton to Winnipeg and recently into Montreal. Throughout Canada, we have our independent airport lounges under the brand name of Plaza Premium. We also have our different tiers of lounges. We recently introduced a concept called Plaza Premium First into the market. It offers an elevated experience for a premium lounge. Why? Because at the end of the day, we realize… that people are becoming more affluent. Leisure travelers are willing to pay for premium experiences. When my father started this company over 28 years ago, he wanted to be able to extend premium services to a wider audience, but there’s no such thing as one size fits all. WARD: What differentiates First from the standard Plaza Premium lounge experience? SONG: Several things: space, the food and beverage offering, the design, the service levels. Today, almost everyone has some entitlement to enter the lounge. There is a segment of people saying, ‘wait a minute, I’m willing to pay a higher fee for privacy, for more space. I don’t want to be sitting shoulder to shoulder with others. I want

Above: Jonathan Song, chief commercial officer, Plaza Premium Group.

Above: Pascal Bélanger, senior vice president, Americas, Plaza Premium Group.

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AX NEWS FEBRUARY 2026