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138 reviews
In this trip report, I'll be sharing the international economy short-haul experience on board Korean Air's new A321neo. I'll also be documenting how KE's recently-launched in-flight wi-fi service performs.
Our plane for this flight was a seven month old Airbus A321-272NX registered HL8530, delivered to Korean Air in June 2023.
The seats are laid out in the A320 family's standard 3-3 configuration, with 31-32" of legroom. The seat is upholstered in this gorgeous multi-colored fabric; the headrest is leather with adjustable height and wings.
Legroom is excellent; being around 170cm tall, I had plenty of space between my knees and the seat back pocket, despite it being stuffed with literature.
Seat width is also great. The flight was nearly full, yet I had plenty of room to move around.
There is also mood lighting, as well as air vents — which were absent in KE's other planes, even on their long-haul 777-300ERs.
Finally, the seats come with coat hooks:
The only con of the seat was its tray table: It is a single-fold affair on the small side.
Despite the short flight time, Korean Air managed to provide a full hot meal. There was only one option, steamed fish in sauce with steamed vegetables and rice. It was accompanied by fruits, nuts, water, and a wet towel.
The fish was moist and tender, better than some fish dishes I've had on the ground, while the fruits were sweet and juicy.
This is by far the most impressive short-haul economy class meal I've had for this flight time, and may even rival some meals I've had on long-haul flights on other carriers' flagship jets.
I would go out on a limb and say that the IFE on the A321neo is the best in Korean Air's fleet, even beating out the systems in their long-haul aircraft.
Being a new plane, KE can install a new generation of IFE with a large screen, slim bezels, and responsive UI. On the A321neo, the screen is 13.3 inches across, being as big as the screen on my laptop.
The big drawback of this display is the glare because of its glossy finish. The reflections made it hard to enjoy content, especially on a daytime flight.
My main motivation for writing this trip report is to document how Korean Air's wi-fi service performs. Given that it has to be paid for, it would be worth knowing for others if it is worth it to spend money on KE's in-flight wi-fi.
As of the time of writing, only their 737 MAX and A321neos have wi-fi, both of which serve only short-haul routes.
Prices for wi-fi can be found on Korean Air's website here. For this KIX-ICN flight, it falls under "Short-Haul", so I paid USD 11.95. Access was good for the full flight.
Wi-fi cannot be purchased in advance. Instead, you'll have to purchase it in-flight. This made payment tricky, since I couldn't get Google Pay nor my Visa card to work. I had to use my Mastercard to pay. I suspect that's because of poorly-configured whitelisting of Google Pay and Visa 3-D Secure.
The purchasing flow also required quite a bit of patience, as loading times were long.
I ran a speed test, and it was slow:
The low speed and high latency was reflected in the browsing experience: Everything took a few seconds longer to load than on the ground. It is perfect for checking emails and reading articles, but images would take a while to load.
Surprisingly enough, the wi-fi shined when I had to sit in a few Google Meet work calls. I could see the presenters' screens in high quality and with no choppiness. I could hear the other persons talk clearly — no lags or extreme audio compression. I tried to test if my colleagues could hear me, but they could not. Because of this, as well as to avoid being rude to my seatmates, I had to resort to communicating via the in-call chat.
Streaming videos on YouTube also worked very well, albeit only up to 480p. 720p and beyond is unplayable — you can see it in this quick demo I've screen recorded.
Connecting to the wi-fi also allows you access to the IFE straight to your device. You can watch movies and TV shows, view the airshow, and even control your IFE and seat lights with a remote control functionality. This feature is free, no need to pay.
Korean Air's A321neo showcases the very best that the airline has to offer: Comfortable seats, high-tech IFE, serviceable wi-fi, and generous meals. I left the flight pleased and hoping that this experience eventually gets rolled out to the rest of KE's route network.
Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 6 avis concernant 4 compagnies sur la ligne Osaka (KIX) → Seoul (ICN).
La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est Korean Air avec 8.0/10.
La durée moyenne des vols est de 1 heures et 45 minutes.
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5 Comments
Nice cabin with the Airspace design.
Great meal but indeed the table tray is a bit small.
IFE screen is of a great size but the mirror/glossy finishes is not practical for daylight flights.
Btw, I changed the aircraft type from "A321" to "A321neo".
Great first review with nice photos and good information. Looking forward to future reviews !
Welcome to Flight-Report!
I’m not convinced by the pattern since I don’t see how it really ties into KE’s imagery, but maybe it looks better in person.
It’s a shame that KE/OZ really only diversify their menus beyond bibimbap on the shorter regional flights to Japan/China, because as you said the catering is usually strong. The IFE looks very nice, but as others have said the glossy finish must be annoying. KE advancing WiFi is a luxury for the region. Chinese carriers are just now figuring out BYOD and at least as far as i’m aware the Japanese carriers don’t activate WiFi on regional routes.
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