Flying Korean Air’s A380

This is a continuation of my round the world trip in August/September 2014. You can read the other sections of this trip report as follows: Flying the Emirates A380 in First, The Grand Hyatt Dubai, The Grand Hyatt Singapore, Flying the Emirates A380 in First for a second time, The JW Khao Lak, Flying SilkAir Business Class- Phuket to Singapore and Flying Korean Air for the First Time – Part One .

 

We arrived into Seoul on our first flight on Korean Air with plenty of time to enjoy the KAL First Class lounge.

Introduction

Prior to heading to the plane we grabbed a bite to eat and a quick shower at the KAL First Class lounge.  There wasn’t much to get really excited about but they do have a really cool A380 model. It is worth noting that the Grand Hyatt Incheon caters the KAL First Lounge. I’m not sure it really made sense.

The shower rooms were laid out nicely and there was a hair drier that only kind’ve worked.

The Flight

Korean Airlines has their first class cabin in the nose of the main deck. I’m not sure whether I prefer sitting on the upper deck or the main deck, but that’s a post for another time. My wife and I both chose window seats since the cabin was only 3/12, and Incheon can be fun to planespot while taxiing through.  The seats weren’t opulent like Emirates, but were perfectly sufficient, although I had really hoped the silver looking thing on the left of the seat (on the right looking at the photo) would have been a in-seat beer tap, it was just a light. I do believe an in-seat beer tap would’ve been better than an in-seat mini-bar.

 

We were offered champagne after take off.

Dinner service was nice but I ended up having to send my steak back twice as it came out mooing. Given how long it took, I completely forgot to actually photograph it (I was getting pretty hungry).

Just forward of the first class cabin, the crew set up a selection of snacks, in addition to a la carte options.

This might have been the most empty A380 flight we had flown (and recall, the Emirates cabin crew noted we only had ~179 passengers from Dubai to Singapore). I’d say the business class cabin might’ve been a third full.

There’s a bar on the upper deck aft of the business class cabin that I found stylish, but in a completely different ballpark compared to the Emirates A380 bar we had lounged in earlier in the trip. I’m not saying that it wasn’t as nice, but it was certainly different.

On the lower deck there was Korean Airlines’ famed in-flight duty shop, at which my wife tested out some of perfumes with the cabin crew.

We both managed to get a fair bit of sleep on the flight. One of the things that stood out, aside from the wonderful service of the cabin crew (in fact, I may have insulted them when I put my table away myself, sorry!), was the weight of the duvet. I’m not a critic of bedding, but, in general I like a heavier weight, not necessarily warmer, but at least heavier. This duvet was perhaps the perfect balance of weight and lightness (e.g. not overly warm) if that makes sense.

 

Conclusion

While we ended up spending quite a bit of points on this (100,000 UR points transferred to Korean SkyPass), it was a great flight and well worth the time it took to book with miles.  While I can’t remember what I watched on the In Flight Entertainment (IFE), it was certainly enough to keep me busy, such that the ~13 hour flight passed quickly. I’d certainly fly Korean again, although I’m not sure that I’d go out of my way for the A380, even comparing it to the 777-200 seat. Candidly I think the staff sets the airline apart more than the amenities of the A380.