In June, the Plaza Premium Group announced its newest facility at Hong Kong International Airport (HKG), but it wasn't a new lounge. Instead, it was a cocktail bar located in the new Sky Bridge in Terminal 1, offering stunning views of aircraft crossing. This bar is called Intervals, and Simple Flying sat down with Mei Mei Song, Director of Global Brand and Transformation at Plaza Premium, and Victoria Chow, the Creative Director for Intervals, to learn more about the idea and vision of this new project.

Long in the making

While the public got its first glimpse of Intervals in June, Chow and Song devised the idea in 2019 and tendered for the space with an opening date of 2020. However, protests in Hong Kong and the pandemic months after meant a halt on all new projects, including the opening of the Sky Bridge, and it was back to the drawing board. However, HKIA continued its construction, and Plaza Premium remained committed.

After a period of "start-stop-star-stop," the Sky Bridge was completed in 2022, and Intervals was in full-scale construction to open its door the following year. That launch came together on June 21st, 2023, and its design caught several frequent travelers' eye.

Photo: Plaza Premium Group

Perfect place

While the Plaza Premium Group has expanded from lounges to airport services and much more, the restaurant and bar space wasn't in its portfolio. However, Mei Mei Song saw the bar as an opportunity to create something new and in the perfect place, saying,

"I wanted to create a destination. An airport destination that gives you a reason to come and enjoy your time at the airport. I think a lot of times, people see the time at the airport as something that they don't look forward to. We don't want that, we want people to enjoy it and the airport time should be a fun part of the whole journey."

However, the push came when HKIA approached the group to build an F&B facility on the Sky Bridge, and the idea of the facility was born. Song added,

The philosophy of the bar

As the name Intervals suggests, the bar is a play on time. You can order cocktail flights by how much time you have, or how many drinks you want, ranging from 15 minutes to 45 minutes, trying as many flavors as you want. Whichever one you like the most can then be ordered separately as well. Priced at HK$185 ($20) for the two cocktail flights or HK$148 ($18.8) for a full drink, the bar is not priced over the top despite its elegant design and prime location.

For Victoria Chow, who has a history of successful bars and creating unique spirits, the bar was an opportunity to bring a top-tier bar to an airport and create a concept complementing that. She told us,

"We wanted to make sure that [Intervals] would exceed expectations by miles and that you have a similar experience that you would have inside any top-tier city center bar. My motivation for doing this project was that airports were always one of the venues I wanted to work on. Airports are such a transient space where time literally doesn't matter. You see people drinking at the airport at 6AM in the morning and where else in the world does that happen?"

Everything in the bar is a play on the fact that in an airport, time is measured by intervals. The time from check-in to security to boarding to take off is clear, and so is the time you spend enjoying a bar. Speaking of the bar, there are over a dozen drinks on offer, with plenty of non-alcoholic options. Each addresses a different time of day, depending on if you want a coffee kick (Rise) or an evening wind-down (Autumn). Song noted that the menus will see seasonal changes every quarter, but the concept will remain unchanged. The lounge also offers a selection of light bites that can be created for takeaway.

Could we see more?

Intervals is looking to step up the airport bar experience, offering passengers an oasis of calm that is hard to find, even in a lounge. When asked whether the concept could be expanded to more hub airports, Song and Chow were open to the idea but noted that Hong Kong offered the perfect location and grounds to test the concept.

However, if the bar is successful, there is likely no reason we couldn't see more of these facilities in the future. While Plaza Premium is famed for its lounges, a paid facility is a good fit for its offering, and its expertise would be valuable.

What do you think about the new Intervals Bar in Hong Kong? Let us know in the comments!