Honestly, I did not know if I was going to post this review. I had everything written and only had to add the post-landing part but the website hadn't saved ANYTHING despite showing that it did. So now I have to start all over again and unfortunately, that happens to me with like every 3rd flight report. Am I the only one having this issue?? So my apologies if this report falls short but I already invested lots of time in the first version and it is very annoying to write all of it again from scratch.
Flight Stats
Aircraft: A321neo
Reg: HL-8532
Age: 2yo
Flight time: approx. 2h 35, tho it showed as delayed 7 minutes before departure already.
Price: 18'800 FB Miles + 55€.
The cash value was ~400€ on the KE Website though flying blue listed it as 179k €, for whatever reason.
Morning and way to the airport
I woke up early this morning, as I wanted to get some breakfast from the close 711 before heading to the airport since I was VERY hungry. I then checked out and took the metro to the airport. I highly recommed the regular AREX since its better value.
The subway station where I connected onto AREX also had a little plane prop.
On the subway I tried reading the korean labels, since I started learning it for fun the day before and I was proud of myself that I could figure out the pronounciation of the words, even though I obviously didn't know their meaning yet. So let's go to 서울 Airport!
The lady opposite of me wore a Asiana uniform, sad to see it disappear at the end of the year.
Incheon
I then arrived at Incheon and tapped out. With ₩400 (USD 0.3) left on my Tmoney card, I believe the math ended up well.
I then headed up to the departure level.
KE Priority Checkin is at Desk A, which is quite a walk but there was no queue and I got my boarding pass very quick and dropped off my luggage.
Then I headed through security and passport control which both went fast.
Be advised tho, that there is no Priority lane at ICN. Also, i used ICN smart pass but couldn't locate the gate for it so I used the regular queue.
Now let's head to the Lounge.
Korean Air Prestige Class Lounge East
I used the East lounge which was opposite my Gate, 253.
The lounge is spacious in a beautiful dark color theme. It also was quite empty.
I disliked however, that even for soft drinks, you had to use a staffed counter.
I then got breakfast which was good but not special. By the time I left the lounge, I actually saw the lunch buffett which looked way better than breakfast but I did not have time to try it anymore.
The little snack pretzels came with the long island iced tea I had ordered.
Soft drinks were VERY limited with only coca cola and sprite being available.
The restrooms were clean and nicely designed.
Boarding
It was then time for Boarding. The screens already showed boarding but I was told that we had to wait 10 more minutes.
We started on time at 12:30 and we had to show the Boarding pass three times. Once to an agent together with passport, once at the scanner and once again before entering the aircraft.
Flight
The seat is a big upgrade compared to the usual european business class shorthaul product and was a full lie flat seat in a 2-2 configuration.
It featured a bluetooth screen, touch screen remote, usb-c outlet, headphones, wireless charing pad and a coat hook.
Slippers were also provided.
Of course the welcome drink and the (BOILING) hot towel were served. Also an image of the menu below.
I actually preordered my meal to be fish.
Then it was time to taxi. We took off at 1:21pm, 11 behind schedule due to a long taxi.
We took off northbound and quickly turned right (don't wanna enter the norths territory, do we?)
Shortly after, the meal and coffee (or tea in my case) were served along with choicd of drink.
After I finished my salad, it was replaced with fruit. Sad to see that there was no "real" dessert.
Then it was time to enjoy the short 2h flight to Tokyo.
And before I knew it we were on approach
We landed at 3:19 and after a short taxi of just 7min arrived at our gate at 15:26, 9mins ahead of schedule.
Immigration took about 45minutes due to a HUGE queue. Then i took the train to the city which took another two and a half hours since we departed but the one in front of us hit a person, so we backtracked to Narita and had to wait 40mins for the next one.
But then, I finally arrived in Tokyo.
