Review of Korean Air flight from Dubai to Seoul in Economy

KAL

KE - Korean Air

Flight taken on 30 June 2024
KE952
22:10 08h 40m 11:50
Class Economy
Seat 32G
JSP
2,532 · 40 · 8 · 34

Welcome to my first trip report here on Flight-Report.

Last summer, I flew Korean Air round-trip from Dubai to Busan via Seoul to visit my family. After flying Etihad before and being impressed by their huge improvements in in-flight experience, I was curious which one would be better (though I'm still yet to try Emirates on the UAE-Korea market). 


Flight routing


Checking-in & airport experience


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Arrived at DXB around 7 pm. Like most foreign carriers, KAL too uses terminal 1 at DXB. It was crowded but I thought the process wasn't too bad.


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The check-in wasn't open by that time so I headed upstairs to have a dinner at McDonald's. 


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After that I went downstairs finally check in, and got my boarding pass printed - this and my connecting flight to Busan.


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I'm not sure whether does terminal has its own airside, since I always had to take this shuttle train to the satellite concourse. This Bombardier-made train was rather bumpy but at least wasn't crazily crowded. 


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After getting into the satellite, I noticed the KAL crews heading to the lower level - a sign that my flight would depart from a remote stand (for reference, the gate number is only revealed certain amount of time from departure). I can't say that I was disappointed as an aviation geek; quite the opposite actually.  

The concourse was overall decent, I thought. 


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When I was browsing through the duty-free section, I noticed this Emirates merch corner and ended up buying the Emirates A380 "Destination Dubai" special colours model (one in the left top) and an aviation magazine in the magazine section. 


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And yes, my flight is departing from a remote stand. At that point it was already revealed that my gate was D29. 


Boarding


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For some reason, I decided to be one of the last passengers to board the plane (technically, the bus before the plane).


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The bus had a screen which displayed the flight information, which I thought was a nice touch.


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Sorry for the blurry picture, I was in a bit of hurry. 

This 2013-built A333-200, registered HL8276, took me to Seoul. At this point KAL retired all their A332s and handed them to T'way Air (a Korean low-cost carrier), with some of KAL's European routes as a part of their strategy to get OZ acquisition and merger approved. 


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This view never gets old 😊


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The earphones were at the door to take. This was when I acknowledged that KAL replaced headphones by earphones. Can't exactly I didn't like this change though, since passengers had to put on the caps by their own with the old headphones, and it wasn't always a easy task to do.

They still had children's headphones that seemed to be given as a default to toddlers without having to request in advance. 


Cabin


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KAL A332s were in a C30Y188 configuration - 18 business class (Prestige Class) seats in the front section (with first row being in a separate cabin, since they used to sold those seats as 'first class' before 2018-ish), 12 behind the second set of doors, and the rest of the plane with economy class. 

I passed through this small Prestige Class cabin. Those are pretty outdated, but since I was flying economy I can't help but envy those who sat here. 


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But sucking it up, I sat down on my seat, 32G. 


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The seat was okay. The legroom, the seat width, the recline… everything was on a better side (as someone who's 180 centimetres tall) but not particularly. The seats and the cabin as a whole was well maintained. 





More on the seat. The entertainment selection had quite a variety of contents but nothing noteworthy, besides the fact that the 'games' section was empty. There was no Wi-Fi, just like most of their planes. 

There were no personal air vents.

If you're sitting on an aisle seat, there's small button on the bottom of the armrest which you can push to raise the armrest - which I found to be useful when I wanted to leave the seat but the meals weren't cleared yet. 





The boarding was cleared not so long after I stepped onto the plane, and the safety video, which is apparently the first one to feature a 'virtual human', was played. 

This plane had a camera showing the outside, which I liked since I was sitting on an aisle seat. The plane took off a bit behind the schedule. 





Before the meal service began, I checked the lavatories - there were five of them for economy class passengers - three in the middle, two at the back. One in the centre was wheelchair-accessible and thus the widest. 


Services & in-flight experience


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The economy class amenities - a blanket, a pillow, and the sky blue bag had a pair of slippers and a toothbrush & toothpaste. 


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A bit after that something funny happened. Apparently one passenger was travelling with his/her cat, and the cat escaped the carriage and ran into the front section of the cabin. The crew eventually found that cat and returned to that passenger. Then the crew apologised to each sets of seat for the discomfort, but didn't really mind that incident, so… 😅


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After about an hour after taking off, the meal service began. There were three choices - bibimbap, and this chicken with and a fish dish (I think?). The meal was a bit bland and wasn't especially big, but wasn't bad either. I probably should've gone for the bibimbap, as my seatmate and passengers in front me (all three of them weren't Korean) did. 

For drink, I chose Coke Zero. I would have appreciated if they had an apple juice but sadly they didn't. 


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After the meal service, the crew turned on those purple mood lights for a while before turning it off completely so we can catch some sleep. 


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Before going to sleep, I checked the galley for snacks. There were some small packaged snacks, and some bananas. To drink there were a large bottle of water and a juice (don't know which one was it though). 


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So I picked a brownie and a snack mix. 

And then I washed my face & brushed my teeth to get some sleep. 


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I slept for somewhat longer than three hours. Around 90 minutes before landing, the breakfast was served. There was a choice of this Korean rice porridge or an omelette. 

This time, I enjoyed the meal quite a lot. These were simple but ideal for breakfast, and the hotness of the porridge was pretty refreshing - exactly what I needed after a rather uncomfortable sleep (I mean, it was economy class…). 


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I checked the in-flight map when the plane was entering the Yellow Sea. 


Landing & arrival


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Front camera view on approach. The plane landed around the scheduled time (maybe slightly late?). 


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Since I had almost six hours until the connecting flight's departure, I wasn't in hurry to de-plane at all, that I was one of the last passengers to leave. But for some reason, I decided to not take some proper cabin picture…


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Passing through the business class cabin again. Some seats remained empty the whole flight. 


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Leaving the plane. 


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Then I headed to the transfer side. After going through a security check (where I met some unfriendly agents), I was on the airside where I had to spend six hours, 

Display all

Product ratings

Airline

Korean Air 8.0

  • Cabin8.0 / 10
  • Cabin crew9.0 / 10
  • Entertainment/wifi7.5 / 10
  • Meal/catering7.5 / 10
Departure airport

Dubai - DXB7.6

  • Efficiency7.0 / 10
  • Access7.0 / 10
  • Services8.5 / 10
  • Cleanliness8.0 / 10
Arrival Airport

Seoul - ICN7.0

  • Efficiency6.0 / 10
  • Access7.0 / 10
  • Services6.0 / 10
  • Cleanliness9.0 / 10

Conclusion

While the hard product wasn't the most cutting-edge, I thought the quality of the soft products were good. The meals were (in general) good, their crews were friendly and attentive, the entertainment system was good, etc. Especially the crews on this flight were great. I preferred flying Etihad to Korea previously, but KAL is also a solid option especially given that they're flying their newer B789s to Dubai.

Thank you for reading my first trip report ever!

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Comments (8)

  • Wow, hard to believe this is your first trip report ever! You’re definitely a natural as it’s very well written with great photos!

    I’m surprised KE fly an A332 on this long haul route. Mostly because the J cabin is so outdated, as you mentioned. For Economy though, A330s are definitely comfortable and KE have some of the best seat pitch in Economy overall. The meals look really good too.

    Aside from the (hilarious) escaped cat incident, seems like a very good flight experience overall.

    Thanks for sharing and welcome to Flight-Report! Looking forward to future reports!

    • I'm glad that you enjoyed my report. I've read & watch a lot of airline review contents, so I guess that should've helped me with the quality.

      I was also kinda surprised with KAL's decision to return to Dubai with A332s back in 2022. Honestly it almost feel the same as the last time I flew them in 2019 summer - although one missing thing, the hot towels were noticeable.

      I'll return with couple more experiences to share. Thanks again!

  • Hi, JSP! Wow! What a pro! This doesn't look like a first report at all! A lot of details, great pictures, well written... I just wanted to ask you to blur the face of the FA welcoming passengers at the plane door, please. We have received complaints in previous years from airport/airline staff who didn't like seeing their faces on the reports. 😳

    Thanks, and keep up the good work!! 😀

    • My bad, I'll take care of that ASAP. But regardless, thank you for reading my report and I'm happy that you liked it 😊

  • Great Review of a great Airline !

    • Thanks. While I still think KAL offers an above average experience in general (besides their dated Prestige Class hard product found on many planes) I could notice some cost-cutting measures compared to pre-Pandemic, such as missing hot towels. But overall, I still enjoy their on-board experiences and hope it could get better with the upcoming merger with Asiana where they could use some major change in their service.

  • Thanks for sharing this rare look at KE’s short long-haul service. Not their best hard product, but the A330 is still one of the best options for solo or pair travelers. OZ offers better amenities IMO (other than headphones), but I appreciate how KE catering still includes cheese/crackers since it is almost removed from every other carrier’s Y service. Bibimbap is always the safe bet, even if repetitive. Will be interesting to see how KE/OZ harmonize their offerings post merger. Welcome to the site!

    • Absolutely agree with your view on A330, its 2-4-2 economy pattern is tough to beat. I haven't flown OZ's long-haul yet, and I hopefully I can try that before disappearing.

      Thanks for reading this report, and I've enjoyed reading your TRs too.

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