Tallinn Airport creates pop-up business lounge following sustainability principles

Tallinn Airport, which has repeatedly been named the world’s best, aims to ensure maximum comfort and convenience for travellers while setting itself the goal of doing so using sustainable solutions. Its Business Class Lounge is currently being given a total makeover, for the duration of which travellers will have the use of the airport’s new pop-up Business reLounge – whose name is a nod to the sustainability principles that inspired its design. Given the short lifespan of the reLounge, smart design techniques and long-lasting materials were used to construct and furnish it, with most items earmarked for recycling and repurposing once the space has fulfilled its purpose.

Katrin Hagel, a member of the management board of Tallinn Airport, says that functional but smart and environmentally innovative solutions are always the airport’s number-one choice. “That’s as true of designing the passenger journey as it is of designing the air traffic area,” she said. “We’re guided by the principles of sustainability in everything we do. In fact, we’re on course to becoming a CO₂-neutral airport by 2025 at the very latest. And that’s the approach we took to constructing the Business reLounge: all of the materials and furniture and other items in it have already been, or will in due course be, repurposed. For example, we opted to use fabric walls made from recycled wool in place of plaster or glass dividing walls, while the entryway to the lounge and the mesh fabric surrounding it were made from storm-proof flag fabric production leftovers with a new pattern printed on them. That material will later be turned into bags, and the curtain fabric used on the other walls will be resewn as woollen blankets. Then there’s the furniture, which we either rented or took from the Business Class Lounge itself.” Every detail of the project, Hagel adds, was carefully considered and crafted by the partners involved, meeting the airport’s objective of creating a business lounge which is as sustainable as it is presentable.

The concept for the Business reLounge was created by the design agency Velvet, which also led its execution. Other contributors to the project were Kiu, Pulo, Phére and Borg.

The Business reLounge is situated in the passengers-only part of the terminal, immediately before the arriving baggage area on the 1st floor. It is open from 4:30-22:00 every day and will be in use until the new and improved Business Class Lounge is completed in early March 2024.

The Business reLounge is open to all travellers, with one-off access for up to three hours costing €35 (children aged 2-12: €15). This price includes soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, snacks and the latest newspapers and magazines to read. Business-class passengers flying with airBaltic, Finnair, LOT, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines enjoy free access.