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Hey there, not so much a trip report as I didn't take many photos, but just thought I'd make a few comments about my first Asiana flight. I've got some photos on flickr but they are actually of Korea and are the best shots, I don't have online accounts for run of the mill stuff, maybe I'll upload what I have to a photobucket account and link. I did take some shots in the cabin and of the food.
- online booking, requires IE for perfect performance, although it still loaded slow on IE at work, I use a Mac at home. I made the booking online but they called up to confirm a few details, it's about 100 bucks cheaper to book online than over the phone.
- customer service, I needed to change my flight and called about my seat preference, took less than 2 minutes to get through to an operator and made changes painlessly. While I am sure Asiana does not get the same loadings as SQ, it was still impressive that getting through to them on the phone was so easy.
- I flew business on my own dime, quite a bit cheaper than SQ, and still get the FF points. I'm a lowly silver elite so there is really no benefit to flying SQ, apart from buying tickets online with my AMEX Krisflyer card.
- Economy Oz has no seat back entertainment, there are drop down screens in the cabin. Not sure if I'd fly economy to Korea on Oz, I can justify a higher econ SQ price for that fact alone.
- Service was very good, bilingual cabin crew and captain. Good communication from captain to the passengers in keeping people informed up travel updates or weather.
- Oz business class had limited entertainment, it seems for the shorter hauls they don't have many options, not many Korean options either. About the same selection of Hollywood and Korea movies, there are also some Japanese and Chinese movies. Lots of Korean variety tv shows, similar to what you get on KBS here. However for 6 hrs it's more than fine, and the screen is big.
- Biz seats are the cradle style with flat but not horizontal recline, being just over 6 ft my feet got squashed between the bottom part of the seat and the cradle in front, not a big deal though, I still got a good sleep.
- Biz service was good, at the start of the flight the head steward comes up to each passenger and wishes a good flight and offers their assistance. Attendants are attentive and topped up my champagne frequently, even if I didn’t ask. I must have had a quite a bit because one time when I asked they said the next bottle was not chilled enough, maybe I drunk them out of the first cold stock!
- Food was one meal only for the flight, both ways, but you can ask for sandwiches or Ramen as extras. The food and presentation was pretty simple compared to SQ biz but for me it was fine.
- the lounge in Changi is the SATS premier lounge, which is not that great, poor food selection, but at least there is beer and wine there. I was looking forward to the Asiana biz lounge in Incheon but was further disappointed. It looks great but the only food was 4 dishes, lettuce, cold pasta, broccoli, and some other vegetable. There were also instant cup of noodles, but yeah, I thought that at its home base, Asiana lounge would have been awesome.
- Overall, I would do it again biz style in Asiana, there are some shortcomings, but I cannot justify the ever increasing SQ fares for the extra bits of fluff you can get from them. If I can get free wifi, some sort of food, some sort of beer or soft drink in the lounges, then I’m happy. In the air, I thought they were great, very happy with the service. I don’t travel biz that often, maybe once a year or more if I’m lucky to get my timing right with redemptions, so maybe other more frequent flyers may not be satisfied with Asiana.
- online booking, requires IE for perfect performance, although it still loaded slow on IE at work, I use a Mac at home. I made the booking online but they called up to confirm a few details, it's about 100 bucks cheaper to book online than over the phone.
- customer service, I needed to change my flight and called about my seat preference, took less than 2 minutes to get through to an operator and made changes painlessly. While I am sure Asiana does not get the same loadings as SQ, it was still impressive that getting through to them on the phone was so easy.
- I flew business on my own dime, quite a bit cheaper than SQ, and still get the FF points. I'm a lowly silver elite so there is really no benefit to flying SQ, apart from buying tickets online with my AMEX Krisflyer card.
- Economy Oz has no seat back entertainment, there are drop down screens in the cabin. Not sure if I'd fly economy to Korea on Oz, I can justify a higher econ SQ price for that fact alone.
- Service was very good, bilingual cabin crew and captain. Good communication from captain to the passengers in keeping people informed up travel updates or weather.
- Oz business class had limited entertainment, it seems for the shorter hauls they don't have many options, not many Korean options either. About the same selection of Hollywood and Korea movies, there are also some Japanese and Chinese movies. Lots of Korean variety tv shows, similar to what you get on KBS here. However for 6 hrs it's more than fine, and the screen is big.
- Biz seats are the cradle style with flat but not horizontal recline, being just over 6 ft my feet got squashed between the bottom part of the seat and the cradle in front, not a big deal though, I still got a good sleep.
- Biz service was good, at the start of the flight the head steward comes up to each passenger and wishes a good flight and offers their assistance. Attendants are attentive and topped up my champagne frequently, even if I didn’t ask. I must have had a quite a bit because one time when I asked they said the next bottle was not chilled enough, maybe I drunk them out of the first cold stock!
- Food was one meal only for the flight, both ways, but you can ask for sandwiches or Ramen as extras. The food and presentation was pretty simple compared to SQ biz but for me it was fine.
- the lounge in Changi is the SATS premier lounge, which is not that great, poor food selection, but at least there is beer and wine there. I was looking forward to the Asiana biz lounge in Incheon but was further disappointed. It looks great but the only food was 4 dishes, lettuce, cold pasta, broccoli, and some other vegetable. There were also instant cup of noodles, but yeah, I thought that at its home base, Asiana lounge would have been awesome.
- Overall, I would do it again biz style in Asiana, there are some shortcomings, but I cannot justify the ever increasing SQ fares for the extra bits of fluff you can get from them. If I can get free wifi, some sort of food, some sort of beer or soft drink in the lounges, then I’m happy. In the air, I thought they were great, very happy with the service. I don’t travel biz that often, maybe once a year or more if I’m lucky to get my timing right with redemptions, so maybe other more frequent flyers may not be satisfied with Asiana.
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