While Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) isn’t as important of a market for American as it was a few years back, the airline still has some positive passenger experience updates coming to this Texas airport. We first learned about these in March 2026, but there’s now an update, as American has shared some new renderings of a lounge that will eventually open.

American plans to open a new Admirals Club in Austin . The new Admirals Club will be 12,000 square feet and will be located on the west side of the terminal, nearly doubling the carrier’s current lounge footprint, which covers around 6,000 square feet.

Construction on the new lounge will begin this year, and the current lounge will remain open until the new lounge opens. While no opening date has been announced, I think it’ll realistically be late 2027 or 2028 before this new lounge opens, just based on how long these projects usually take.

The new Admirals Club will of course boast American’s new-style lounge design, which is currently only available at a limited number of airports. It’ll have views of downtown Austin and the airport, plus distinct zones for relaxing, dining, working, and recharging.

On top of that, the lounge will feature another cool amenity — it’ll have the first outdoor terrace space in the entire Admirals Club network. American describes this as a broader effort to reimagine the Admirals Club experience.

It’s great to see American investing in a new lounge in Austin. However, keep in mind that the airline isn’t nearly as ambitious at the airport as it was a few years ago. Coming out of the pandemic, American tried to turn Austin into more of a focus city, but ultimately the airline lost a lot of money on that growth, and decided to pull back . Now the airline once again primarily just serves hubs and focus cities from Austin.

In the meantime, Delta has continued expanding out of Austin , seemingly taking American’s place. While I’m not sure the growth is proving that profitable for Delta, ultimately the airline is more in need of a Texas focus city than American and United, which have among their biggest hubs in Dallas (DFW) and Houston (IAH), respectively.

Here’s how American Chief Customer Officer Heather Garboden describes this: