Mauritius Airport Business Lounge Review (Amédée Maingard Lounge)
The Amédée Maingard Lounge at SSR Mauritius Airport is a great lounge with free access for those flying on Air Mauritius or Air France Business Class. On this day, I was flying from Mauritius to Paris CDG on Air France. The lounge is located at the far end of the Terminal (once you pass security, turn right and walk to the very end, past the bathrooms and towards the last gate). The lounge is located on the opposite side of Gate 28, which Air France and Air Mauritius use for flights to Paris CDG.
You can also access this lounge using several other memberships including Priority Pass and Dragon Pass. Other airlines also provide access to this lounge for their premium passengers (check with your airline).
The lounge is spread over 2 floors. The first time I visited, the entire lounge was open in 2019. However, in our travel doomed covid days, only the upstairs portion was open during my visit in 2021 and 2022.
The ground floor included a large seating area with self serve drinks. The main buffet, bar, bathrooms and showers are upstairs. The 2nd floor is accessible by stairs or elevator.
Food
The best part of this lounge is the food! They have an amazing selection of local cuisines which include dholl puri (my favourite) and haleem. Dholl puri is a soft flaky crepe made from crushed yellow split peas and stuffed with curry. It is usually sold around Mauritius by street-cart vendors. Haleem is a meat stew consisting of oats and lentils simmered in a delicious broth of spices.
Drinks
There is a selection of red and white wines, champagne, beer and classic spirits (rum, gin, etc) offered at the bar.
The service was excellent, with the cleaning staff regularly walking around and swiftly picking up any dirty plates and glasses.
The seating area is spacious and wide. There were many French passengers at the lounge, I assume due to the Air France flight that was leaving later.
Showers
This lounge does offer showers, which I always appreciate although I am not sure it gets used often as this airport is not a busy international layover point but they are available nonetheless. During the hot summers of Mauritius, I sometimes find a shower after arriving at the airport a nice way to freshen up and get ready for the long 12 hour flight to Paris. To access the showers, just ask one of the attendants in the bathroom area. They will bring you some clean towels and toiletries as well.
Unlike other lounges I’ve been to, this lounge still does flight announcements so you are very unlikely to miss your flight. At one point, they made 5 final boarding calls and eventually started calling passengers by name, one of the benefits of a small airport!
The gates are all located right in front of the lounge so unlike at bigger airports, you can leave even after boarding has started and you are guaranteed to make it to your gate on time! I left about 10 minutes after boarding had started for my Air France flight and there was still a long line to board.
When flying out of SSR Airport Mauritius, this is a great place to spend some time, have a bite and maybe a few drinks before your flight.
This post was originally published on Feb 15, 2022 and has been updated since.