Review of Asiana Airlines flight from Singapore to Seoul in Economy

This report is dedicated to Flight-Report user @nykeeo, from South Korea, whose self-deprecating tone of voice is a favourite of mine. Hope you enjoy this report (and get over your heartbreak)! 😅

Note: As I’m most excited about publishing this Asiana A350 report with the little spare time that I have, I’m publishing it first. The Asiana A350 and A380 flights (OZ752 SIN–ICN, OZ102 ICN–NRT) were easily the biggest highlights of my Japan trip in May 2025, and therefore I can’t wait to share them with you.

My continuation to last month (July 2025)’s trip report — my second and final flight on Jetstar Asia before its closure — will be the return flight from Manila on a Cebu Pacific A320neo. I might publish that one before or after the subsequent Asiana A380 trip report, depending on how I can manage my schedule.

Introduction: The travel month of a lifetime — involving a long-cherished airline that won’t last long

Welcome to the trip report series I’m proudest of writing about, that too by squeezing whatever little time I can out of my chock-a-block schedule at India’s prestigious IIM Bangalore business school. As my final days in Singapore were approaching fast before I returned to India, I was determined to turn May 2025 into my biggest travelling month ever, by flying to the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan — with the Japan trip involving a brief transit in South Korea, as you see below — over the span of that month. These countries (though not South Korea) made it much easier for Indians like me who worked in Singapore to apply for visas — or, in the case of the Philippines, be completely visa-free, though that country is now visa-free for ALL Indians since the end of May 2025.

What’s more, I flew eight new airlines plus the now-defunct Singaporean low-cost carrier Jetstar Asia, which ceased operations at the end of July 2025 — as my previous report is a tribute to. None of these airlines serve(d) India at all, except for Japan’s two premier airlines (ANA and JAL), and so it was imperative that I fly them from Singapore — though Asiana Airlines (South Korea) and China Airlines (Taiwan) did serve India before the COVID-19 pandemic, and Korean Air (which I didn’t fly) still serves Delhi.

The centrepiece of the month would be a four-day trip to Japan — involving both Tokyo and Fukuoka — around the Vesak (Buddhist New Year) holiday in the middle of May. In that tight four-day period, I squeezed in as many as five flights: two each on Star Alliance members Asiana Airlines (SIN–ICN–NRT) and All Nippon Airways (HND–FUK, NRT–SIN), and one on Oneworld member Japan Airlines (FUK–HND) on its domestic A350 in ‘Class J’ or Premium Economy. The Asiana flights were on the A350 and A380, and the ANA ones on the domestic 777-200ER and international 787-9, while getting the domestic A350-900 was my key reason for flying JAL — not to mention the sprawling JAL Plaza merchandise store at Haneda Terminal 1.

Of these, in this instalment I will focus on Asiana Airlines (code: OZ), the second full-service airline of South Korea and a member of the Star Alliance. It has already merged with its bigger rival Korean Air, a founder-member of SkyTeam, and will cease to exist from 2027. All the more reason, then, that I needed to fly them as soon as possible, for reasons you will discover below.
Moreover, the one-way ticket cost only S$350 (US$270) compared to the arm and a leg — north of S$800 (US$610) — that Singapore Airlines, ANA and JAL charge for a nonstop flight between Tokyo (either NRT or HND) and Singapore. Nowadays, though, OZ is almost as expensive as the others, with one-way fares on the SIN–ICN–NRT route often touching S$700 — which is only to be expected as almost every Singaporean is obsessed with visiting Japan, driving airfares through the roof.

This was more of an avgeek-driven trip, as my foremost objective was to experience the renowned hospitality of the Japanese airlines, and especially their habit of surprising avgeeks with gifts — as One Mile at a Time found out a few months back on another domestic JAL A350 flight. As such, I could spend only two nights in Tokyo and one in Fukuoka, and even then I squeezed in as much as I could of the world’s most populous city — the Tokyo Skytree, the Ginza and Roppongi districts, the Meiji-Jingu shrine in Harajuku, the Shibuya and Shinjuku skylines, and whatnot.

However, it will be no understatement to say that the single BIGGEST motivation of this Japan trip, compact as it was, was fulfilling my long-cherished dream of flying Asiana Airlines — on both the A350 and the A380, that too on the A380’s upper deck!!! Not to mention, OZ has adorably cute mascots — as you see on that hand-fan in the cover image above — and the flame had been stoked two years before, in mid-2023, as I will explain below. Needless to say, this trip had been many months in the making: I started planning it in October 2024, booked the flight tickets in December, and by the end of April had applied for my Japan tourist e-visa, something that could only have been possible before I permanently left Singapore.

Two years in the making: My fascination with Asiana Airlines

Until Korean Air’s big rebrand in March 2025, it always struck me as the duller, stodgier of South Korea’s two global airlines… and its ancient 40-year-old livery, which I’ve never liked, did it no favours. Not to mention, KE didn’t quite have a track record of matching the all-round excellence in terms of service, product and luxury that Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, ANA and JAL — or, in recent years, Taiwan’s EVA Air and Starlux Airlines — have consistently delivered among East Asian airlines. Fortunately, with the rebrand and new livery, KE has begun to seriously revamp the elements of its corporate identity and product that were lacking earlier — from new first- and business-class cabins and menus, to revamped lounges (desperately needed), to (my personal favourite) a new custom-made font.

In contrast, Asiana Airlines (OZ) is the smaller, more modern and, I should say, friendlier of the two, especially with its beautiful tail design and Airbus-dominated fleet. Moreover, Asiana has been extensively promoting its cute mascots, called the Saekdong crew, to drive home its perception as a symbol of Korean cool. It’s too bad that all this will not last for many years longer… (However, you can’t expect a Korean or Japanese airline to have a pitch-perfect, Westernised brand like Singapore or Malaysia Airlines — and, especially, the ‘eCXeptional’ Cathay Pacific — though KE’s rebrand has started to heavily Westernise its brand identity. While it’s a moot point now, Asiana’s brand image certainly didn’t seem as outdated as KE’s before the big rebrand.)

That said, the airline is one of only two that I know of, the other being British Airways, that places its titles below the windows and its icon above — an approach I find mildly irking. (However, after OZ merged with KE in 2024, it removed the red arrow — which I fondly nickname the ’chevron’ — from its logo and aircraft livery, leading to a very bare-bones text-only logo.) Other airlines with a superscripted logo — like Star Alliance partners Air India and Ethiopian Airlines — don’t place their names below the windows the way Asiana does, which I consider to be a good thing.

It’s only but proper that we start with the event that, almost two years to the day before this flight, led me to discover the charm of Asiana Airlines for myself. This was on 12 May 2023, a day before I explored the cosmopolitan charm of Kuala Lumpur over a weekend trip with some friends from my co-living home company — returning on Ethiopian Airlines’ late-night fifth-freedom KUL–SIN sector! I happened to be at Our Tampines Hub, a massive community-run stadium-cum-mall-cum-library-cum-activity centre in the east of Singapore — and among my favourite haunts in the island. At a Korean tourism fair, with both Asiana and the low-cost carrier T’way Air among the participants, I experienced how comprehensive Asiana’s branding strategy was, ranging from the A350’s passenger comfort and experience (though no tail cameras!) to the lovely Saekdong mascots and Korean culture.

Not only that, but I walked away with gifts from both Asiana and T’way Air: a hand-fan from the former (as you’ve seen above) with all the mascots, and a cute little USB pen drive from the latter. Too bad none of the Asiana model aircraft were available for purchase! (Some more details at this link.)

Later, on New Year’s Day 2024, as I was wrapping up my Vietnam winter trip in the sprawling and simply grandiloquent Lotte Mall Hanoi West Lake — perhaps my favourite mall in all of Southeast Asia because of how new and dazzlingly brilliant it is — I came face to face again with Asiana’s bunch of mascots, this time explaining common Korean words and expressions.

All these lovely encounters only strengthened my resolve to fly with Asiana in the near future. While initially I’d gone about it the wrong way — booking an absolutely insane, ill-advised trip across Northeast Asia without leaving any airport (only to wisely cancel everything afterwards) — I began to formulate a concrete strategy to fulfil my Asiana dream in the second half of 2024. Only after reading extensively about how best to plan a Japan trip in May 2025 did I proceed with it, and it goes without saying that I wouldn’t have flown any airline other than Asiana on my way to Tokyo — all the more so as it was on the A350 and the upper deck of the A380!!!

Pre-departure: Where art thou, HL8360?

Friday, 9 May, afternoon. A quick glance at Asiana’s active flights on Flightradar24 — mostly A350s and A380s, aside from the odd A330-300 or 777-200ER — gave a major clue as to which A350 would operate the inbound OZ751 to Singapore. Historically, the A350 that arrived from Rome (FCO) as OZ562 was most likely to fly OZ751 to Singapore, and in this case it was HL8360, the middle (8th) of a 15-strong A350 fleet. Indeed this would be the case, but not without an unforeseen delay…

Before I proceed, a quick guide to the weird and wacky world of South Korean aircraft registrations in the spoiler.

Asiana has a total of fifteen A350-900s, and their registrations seem totally random at first glance, but not when you take into account when they were delivered to the airline. Here goes:

• HL7578, HL7579 and HL7771 — three registrations that make zero sense since the HL75 and HL77 series are used for much older aircraft, so I have no clue how Asiana A350s got those registrations.
• HL8078 and HL8079, built in 2017, like HL7578/79.
• HL8308, built in 2018, like HL7771.
• HL8359, 8360, 8361, 8362, all built in 2019. Of these, HL8360 would be my aircraft.
• HL8381, 8382, 8383, built in 2020.
• HL8521 and HL8522, the newest of the lot, built in 2023.

(In contrast, Korean Air has just two A350-900s for the time being — HL8597 and HL8598 — which are among the final new widebody deliveries to wear the old KE livery. Somehow I spotted HL8598 in Fukuoka some days later, and a couple of weeks later I also caught HL8515, the first 787-10 in the new Korean Air livery, at Bangkok departing on EVA Air.)

During the lunch break, I roamed around the corridors of the pair of malls located just below my office tower in central Singapore’s busy Novena district, known especially for numerous public hospitals. As often, there were a number of pop-up stalls in the main atria, with one (last row, right) selling cute plush toys that weren’t too different from Asiana’s mascots!

At 2pm SGT, OZ562 landed from Rome, and so did another A350 flight: alliance partner Thai Airways’ TG652, a number that you get by switching the first two digits. Among all the HL-registered arrivals, plus several B- aircraft from China (especially China Eastern), there was a very unique (and small) aircraft: an A319 from Myanmar Airways International, all the way from Yangon!

In a couple of hours more — well after the scheduled departure time — HL8360 started to appear on the map, only to disappear minutes later… and this little game would go on for a good 40 or so minutes.

Only at 4:10pm SGT (an hour behind Korea) did the A350 indeed take off for the six-hour journey to Singapore — and this would no doubt lead to a delay in my own flight’s departure.

Meanwhile I was more distracted by other headlines — like the suspension for a week of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, one of the most cash-rich sports tournaments in the world. This was in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, resulting in military tensions between India and Pakistan. Terror-stricken fans and cheerleaders recounted how they had to run away from a match that had to be abruptly stopped in the middle!

In a couple of hours more, I was prepared to leave work, as my inbox held the proof — an email from Asiana, first in Korean and then in English — that my own departure would be delayed by half an hour as well. Not that I minded at all, the later departure giving me some more time to relax at home (which itself was only 15 minutes away from Changi)…

Soon enough the A350 had reached the northern tip of Taiwan, where Taipei is located, one-third into her 6-hour journey.

Evening. With not much time to have a proper dinner before the flight, I decided to simply pop into the 7-Eleven below my office building, before heading home by MRT or metro train. Funnily enough, 7-Eleven was running an Umami food promotion — so that’s exactly what I bought for dinner, yakisoba noodles for the princely sum of just S$5.50!

Accompanying me on my ride home were the Singapore MRT system’s long-running mascots — such as ‘Stand-up Stacey’ and ‘Hush-hush Hannah’ — for encouraging kindness and polite rides among passengers, and they are as cute as, if not cuter than, Asiana Airlines’ mascots.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be a wise idea to install a mobile Suica card with Apple Pay on my phone, and top-up it using my Singaporean credit cards. I’d done the same thing for the Octopus card during my travels to Hong Kong, just a little over a month prior, at the end of March 2025 — and suffice it to say that Apple Pay brought incredible convenience that Android simply cannot match.

This is another thing that never would’ve been possible from India — it refuses to adopt Apple Pay, even today! Indeed, India is perhaps the biggest major country to reject Apple Pay (though foreign-issued Apple Pay cards do work), whereas it’s a standard throughout most other parts of Asia — with Thailand and Indonesia being two surprising exceptions.

In the Orchard MRT station, where I interchanged on the way home, were some rather Malaysia-centric ads: one for Sarawak, the ‘gateway to Borneo’, and another for YouTrip, the multi-currency wallet that had just recently added support for the MYR or Malaysian ringgit.

And when I reached home some 45 minutes later, just before 8, Trip.com’s Global Top 100 lists were flashing from the ad displays installed beside the lifts. I’m pretty sure Japan ranks near the top of those!

After digging into the 7-Eleven yakisoba noodles that you see above, I reminded myself of why this mission existed in the first place, by carefully taking out my Asiana A350 leaflet that I’d preserved for months. I took several shots of the hand-fan placed together with the leaflet, and then put them into my sidebag — ready to take them out during boarding. (Full resolution here.)

As the plane approached Singapore, the outbound flight was being tracked in the family WhatsApp group, and with it came a number of take-care-stay-safe messages. My mother being rather aviation-illiterate, I had to explain — as I often do — what Asiana Airlines is, why it’s special to me and why it won’t exist in a few years’ time! (Full resolution here.)

After catching some shut-eye, I proceeded to order a Gojek car — I sorely miss this app with its lovely illustrations, so much better than Grab’s or even Uber’s — and soon enough it showed up. (Gojek is available only in Indonesia (its native country) and Singapore, having exited Vietnam in 2024, while the much less impressive Grab operates in as many as 8 Southeast Asian countries.)

Away, away I go, to the magic glass portal 10 minutes from home

Taking full advantage of the delayed departure, I could afford to leave home at around 10-ish, taking pictures as I often do of the room I’d be leaving behind. In less than a month’s time I’d be permanently leaving it behind, though — and leaving Singapore altogether!

For now, another of those ubiquitous Hyundai Ioniqs — seldom seen in Southeast Asia outside Singapore and Malaysia — turned up, and I dumped my luggage into it, and was soon off and away to Changi.

I arrived at Terminal 3, where Singapore Airlines has most of its longhaul (Europe/US/Oceania/Africa) operations, in addition to flights to India. Other flights — including those to Japan and Korea, plus South Asian countries except India — use Terminal 2.

Besides SQ, three other Star Alliance members operate from Terminal 3 (second row below, left) — Air New Zealand, Asiana Airlines and EVA Air — with most other alliance members at Terminal 2, and some like Turkish Airlines and Air China at Terminal 1. This aside, many SkyTeam members are based at T3, including China (Eastern) Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Saudia and Vietnam Airlines (as you see: second row, right)… with SriLankan the only representative from Oneworld.

The great majority of Star Alliance airlines are based at the gorgeous Terminal 2, including ANA (which I’d fly on the return), Air India, Ethiopian (which I’ve also flown), Lufthansa, United and most recently Thai Airways, which shifted from Terminal 1 in February 2025. These airlines’ premium passengers get to easily enjoy all the SilverKris Lounges at Terminals 2 and 3.

But those at the underwhelming Terminal 1 — namely Turkish Airlines and the Mainland Chinese duo of Air China and Shenzhen Airlines — aren’t so lucky, what with all the Skytrain rides involved. Fortunately there are none at the dazzling Terminal 4, which is predominantly a low-cost terminal… barring Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and some Mainland Chinese airlines like Hainan Airlines.

Inside, I breezed to the Asiana check-in counters, which were still very much open thanks to the delayed departure. There I showed my physical Japan e-visa — it had to be printed on paper — and, without too much fuss, was issued a pair of boarding passes. Their backs advertised the Export-Import Bank of Korea, entirely in Korean except for one line at the bottom: We Finance Global Korea.

And I was one step closer to beginning an exciting and unknown trip, one with airlines having a somewhat poor command of English but managing to charm all the same… Woohoo!!!

Now I headed to the Rainforest Experience, and pushed the buttons illuminating the lights on the wall opposite, towering above baggage claim — each of them playing a sweet melody along with nature-inspired sounds. My pick of the lot was Earth, which played a soulful guitar strum, as I’m a sucker for anything in the key of D minor!

Exactly a year and a half ago, on 9 November 2023, I’d done the same before flying the SriLankan A330-300 for the first (and, so far, only) time. Oh, what a memorable flight that was — replete with the famed authenticity of Sri Lankan hospitality, and even having a chocolate cake onboard! 🥰

In my caption, I also noted that this would likely be my final Changi T3 departure for years to come! I bore in mind that my final departure overall from Singapore, in a month’s time — to Jakarta in SQ’s First Class(!!!), followed by SriLankan’s A321neo Business Class — would be from T2, even though I did visit SQ’s famed The Private Room in T3.

Meanwhile there was an exhibition for 70 years of Miffy, the equally lovable Dutch cartoon rabbit created by Dick Bruna. If I were flying KLM it might have been more fitting for my journey, but now I would be flying a Korean airline, if not its SkyTeam partner Korean Air.

I’m afraid Korea doesn’t have all that much by way of famous animated characters and franchises the way Japan does — most especially Hello Kitty, which strongly resembles Miffy — so Asiana’s Saekdong crew would have to do!

More cartoons awaited after Immigration, specifically the glamorous Louis Vuitton store with its very Japanese anime-style line-drawn animations that were, in a word, whimsical. As is very often the case, a young girl and a brightly coloured anthropomorphic Pikachu-like character enter new worlds just like Alice in Wonderland.

These animations sure provided for a dramatic contrast to the standard luxury stores, restaurants and duty-frees that you associate with Changi, or for that matter most major global hubs.

Not for nothing is this called the world’s best airport — and this is no doubt aided by all the exorbitant stores where you’ll pay no less than a four-figure dollar value for anything!

If nothing else, these cutesy animations would set the theme for my journey to Gate A10 — and, what’s more, a nearby Hermès had a façade with a twist: it was rendered entirely in bitmap pixels!

Some more French-speaking brands lay ahead, such as the big, shimmering Bacha Coffee from Marrakech, Morocco, opposite the A1–A8 gates, and the tell-tale Chanel ad arch that was now promoting its Chance fragrance. Usually I see the Chanel arch when turning right from Immigration towards the B gates, and as such I don’t quite associate it with the A gates, even though I’ve been here before. This is officially called the ‘Digital Gateway’, and was inaugurated in June 2023, with Chanel as its permanent sponsor at both the A and B gates.

At length I reached Gates A9 and A10, with their at-gate security check: OZ752 would be boarding soon, followed by China Eastern MU5032 to Beijing–Daxing.

A (8)360-degree preview of an exciting Korean adventure

The first plane I saw at a gate was Garuda Indonesia’s 737-800 PK-GNQ, decorated with stickers for UOB cards — this being one of Singapore’s Big Three banks (along with DBS and OCBC) with a large presence in Indonesia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries. Another Indonesian 737-800, Batik Air’s PK-LZV, passed by not long after, headed to Jakarta as ID7158.

This brought to mind my June 2023 journey — Denpasar to Jakarta to Singapore — on two Garuda Indonesia A330-300s, both with special decals: one (PK-GHC) with a mask decal on the nose, and the other (PK-GPU) with a BRImo banking app sticker near the front. And that’s saying nothing of the flight that started it all, a KLM 777-300ER (PH-BVD) in SkyTeam livery, which I still rank as my favourite flight of 2023… ahhh!!! 🥰

The flight I would soon be boarding was no less momentous in my travelling history. A new airline, a new country — and to a part of Asia where I hadn’t been before, indeed the most densely populated part of the world!

Most of the passengers in the waiting area were expectedly Koreans, and only a few Singaporeans were present, identified by their ability to speak English. I was comfortably the only dark-skinned person by a mile, though I did see a couple of other Indians — as unlikely as that sounds on a Korean airline (probably connecting to the US?) — while on board.

With my family I shared some pictures of the Miffy exhibit, and got a two-word response that, while brief, encapsulated everything that this airport stood for: ‘Beautiful Changi‘! Other than that, I looked up on Planespotters.net the details of HL8360, which had recently completed 6 years with Asiana, being delivered new in April 2019.

Among the aircraft on the ground, this was peak hour for European departures, with the likes of Swiss, Turkish Airlines and the Oneworld twin forces of Qantas and British Airways — both continuing from Sydney — all headed for European shores. But Air France, Lufthansa and Finnair were nowhere in sight on these screens, having either departed long before or yet to arrive. This aside, there were some Mainland Chinese aircraft, as there always are: a Juneyao A320neo here, a China Southern 737 MAX there, and widebodies from Air China and China Eastern.

All too soon boarding was called, and I quickly spoke to my mom while filling up my water bottle at a nearby dispenser, reassuring that I wouldn’t take random pictures of people — something that the Koreans and Japanese can frown upon all too often.

With every step on the HSBC-ad-covered jetbridge — though the Asiana titles (minus the red ‘chevron’, of course) were sadly not visible — I was inching ever closer to an trip that would turn out to be a 360-degree redefining experience… as that number 360 below the nosewheel door was proof of!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Asiana Airlines OZ752/AAR752
Date: Friday, 9 May 2025
Route: Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN) to Seoul/Incheon (RKSI/ICN)
Aircraft: HL8360, Airbus A350-900
Age: 6 years 3 months at the time (built: 20 February 2019, delivered: 16 April 2019)
Seat: 36K (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 10:55pm SGT, UTC +8 (11:55pm KST, UTC +9)
Departure: 11:45pm SGT (12:45am KST)
Arrival: 6:25am KST (5:25am SGT)
Duration: 5 hours 40 minutes

Notes: It goes without saying that this was a flight of many firsts — first on Asiana, first to South Korea, first to Northeast Asia (excluding Hong Kong), first to the UTC +9 time zone (!!!), etc., etc. — but I would specifically like to highlight two noteworthy stats.

• One, this was the fifth Star Alliance airline that I flew, after Singapore Airlines, Air India, Thai Airways and — though only on the short fifth-freedom sector between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur — Ethiopian Airlines. (A few days later, All Nippon Airways became #6, and two weeks later EVA Air became #7.)
• Two, this was the fifth airline on which I flew the A350, after SQ, AI, TG — yes, the same Star Alliance trifecta again — and Cathay Pacific, whose A350 I’ve also flown a handful of times. In a matter of days another Oneworld airline, JAL, would become the sixth A350 airline for me… that too in Class J (premium economy), a cabin that I also flew with Air India in early 2024 shortly after its A350 entered service.
The A350 remains far and away my most-flown widebody aircraft, thanks in large part to Singapore Airlines’ medium-haul (regional) configured 9V-SH series of A350s.

Also, this was easily one of my longer flights, though stopped short of the six-hour mark — and hence this didn’t come close to surpassing the record of 6.5, followed by 7.5, hours that two Emirates A380 flights in July 2024 (SIN–DXB and back) had set.

Is it A350 or 8360? Either way, it’s very, very brown and beige…

No sooner was I annyeong-ed on board the A350 by the smiling, unmasked female flight attendant than Asiana’s infamous beige-and-brown colour combination, hated by many travellers, made its appearance. Not that I cared: what irked me more was that Asiana was one of those airlines that didn’t have row numbers above 45… BOO!!! This is something that I love on both SQ, where A350 MH (medium-haul) row numbers reach 70, and CX, where they go up to 74. I headed to 36K, which is my go-to window seat on widebodies like these which refuse to do the sensible thing and have row numbers above 60.

Passengers continued to settle in, including, surprisingly enough, an Indian couple and adult daughter in the rear extra-legroom section — something you don’t expect on East Asian airlines like this or EVA! As a result I’ve had to heavily blur the pictures below.

Waiting at my seat was a series of disclaimers and banners on loop: both safety-related (Korean and English) and ads for duty-free, events and concerts (Korean only). The airline went all-out in showcasing events and concerts from all across Seoul and the rest of the country — but it wasn’t very foreigner-friendly, what with the lack of English for many of the ads. That said, Asiana is hardly alone in Northeast Asia in this regard, because CX is the only one that has truly Westernised itself, given Hong Kong’s British influence.

Soft instrumental symphony music played on the PA as the passengers boarded, which, while not Korean or unique to the airline, certainly helped in relaxing.

This alternated with a welcome screen, a reminder to behave politely — with the saekdong crew at that! — and the airshow’s speed, temperature and distance page, though not the actual map itself. I busied myself for a bit by flipping through the Asiana Duty Free magazine, there being no other literature in the seatback pocket, now that the eponymous Asiana magazine is no more.

Sadly, Asiana has followed Singapore Airlines in having zero inflight magazines of any kind — unlike nearby alliance partners ANA and EVA, which have digital magazines (Tsubasa Global Wings and enVoyage respectively), or Thai Airways, which brought back its physical Sawasdee magazine in May 2025!

Presently the lead flight attendant made an initial welcome announcement: first the Korean one, with every other sentence ending with da (다) — that signature of Korean, much like masu is for Japanese — and then English. Codeshares were introduced as AC6995 and SQ5752, without specifying the airline name, and she gave only safety-related guidelines without even ending with a ‘sit back, relax and enjoy the flight!’ 😥

As you might expect, Asiana is NOT an airline with a lot of non-Korean crew — unlike some highly globalised airlines, and Cathay Pacific in particular, with its plethora of Western pilots. As such, the cabin crew will simply get the announcement out of their way, and not dwell upon little details like advertising their service and hospitality as you might see on Singapore Airlines or Thai Airways.

This was followed by the captain’s welcome, which lasted all of fifteen seconds in English, and consisted exclusively of the following words in a thick Korean accent:

‘Good evening, this is Captain Park Chae-won* from flight deck. Welcome aboard Asiana Airlines, a member of Star Alliance, bound for Seoul/Incheon International Airport. Thank you and enjoy the flight.’
*At least that’s what I think his name felt like…

Quite the contrast to the detailed (often informal and chatty) captain’s welcomes on other airlines, eh? After this, the soft instrumental music continued, interrupted every few seconds by the lead FA going, ‘Ground clear… No. 1 clear… no. 2 clear… no. 3 clear… no. 4 clear.’ Then the lead FA made another, longer welcome announcement, this time mentioning the flight time (5 hours 50 minutes) before another list of safety instructions and anti-smoking warnings. She ended with ‘Thank you for flying Asiana Airlines, a member of Star Alliance. Hope you enjoy the flight!’ 😇

Honestly, I don’t mind hearing Korean (or Japanese) over and over again, having attuned my ears to their sounds and tones from K-dramas and anime, respectively. It’s a thousand times nicer than Mandarin Chinese, which I feel is jarring and piercing to the ears, and which I’ve sadly heard much more often than I’d like. I’d much rather have an FA named Lee Hyeon-sung or Yumiko Takahada serving me than a Feng Qiaosheng or a Li Xiangrui, given the language and hospitality barrier… (These are fictional names.)

Meanwhile the A350 showed up on the Flightradar24 map, and by 11:30 we had started our taxi from the gate — passing by 9V-SCP, the 1000th 787 of all time, which was delivered to SQ only after many delays. Though of course that cannot hold a candle to the legendary 9V-SMF, an SQ A350 that’s the 10,000th Airbus aircraft ever, which I’m lucky enough to have flown. As always, my parents flooded the family WhatsApp group with prayers and good wishes, along with a ‘See you soon Changi’! 🥲

As dull as dishwater: Asiana’s uninspiring, music-less safety video

Now the safety video played, and, to my dismay, there was zero presence of Korean culture or heritage. In fact, it didn’t even have a background music track! This was one of those highly generic basics-only safety videos, with just a laundry list of instructions and zero personality whatsoever — and, worse, it was filmed on a green screen. If you’re not going to have anything cultural or entertaining, at least do it like Emirates’ latest ’no-nonsense’ safety video, which delivers all the safety instructions you need with all the warmth and wordly-wiseness that that brand personifies.

I guess I should probably be grateful for this boredom, because the alternative is countryman Korean Air’s utterly outlandish safety video (released in January 2024) with virtual humans including an influencer called Rina and a virtual K-pop group named MAVE… 🤯 No, no, this is NOT what teenage TikTokers and Generation Z/Alpha asked for, I can assure you that!

Still, this was a big missed opportunity for Asiana Airlines, especially when safety videos are now the ultimate onboard branding weapon (just ask Air New Zealand!). No amount of swooshing blue-yellow-red ribbons could convince me otherwise, and even the ending screen was bereft of not only the red chevron but the also ‘A Star Alliance Member’ logo — just a plain old Asiana Airlines wordmark on a white screen… Where are those cute Korean mascots when you need them?!

It wouldn’t be long before the A350 pulled out of Terminal 3 and started to make her way to the runway. She bypassed none other than 9V-SWM, the very same SQ 777-300ER (in white Star Alliance livery) that was involved in the SQ321 turbulence incident in May 2024 that killed one passenger, and hence had to be grounded at Changi for two months…

The safety video gave way to the start page of the OZ:enter IFE system, which, while a cute name with a colon, simply does not cut the mustard compared to other IFE systems out there. This is simply a reflection of how un-Westernised Asiana is… and ANA’s 787-9 IFE on the return to Singapore four evenings later was even worse in terms of the outdated blue design (though at least I watched a cool movie on it!).

And did I mention that Asiana A350s do NOT have a tail camera, just like SQ’s? (If there were one, I would have already spammed the post with multiple pictures from it.) At least SQ has free Wi-Fi and a solid IFE system — even though ridden with the shoddy Montserrat font — to make up for it… No, this flight didn’t have Wi-Fi either, which I’ve also found to consistently be the case on Thai Airways’ A350s.

As if to make up for the blandness of the OZ:enter content selection, A6-EEW, Emirates’ special A380 in a multicoloured ‘Destination Dubai’ livery — originally to promote the Dubai Expo, held in 2021–22 — made an appearance just as we passed by Terminal 1. I’ve got a model of this aircraft with me, from my first Dubai trip in June 2022, sitting proudly on my desk!

A so-called ‘KLM Asia’ 777-300ER (PH-BVB) and a ZIPAIR Tokyo 787-8 later, I was all ready to thunder down the runway and blast into the night above on this exciting, unknown, very foreign, somewhat non-English-speaking airline.

As we were about to take off, I, being the weirdo that I am, had a glance at the help guide for the IFE system. I daresay the UI looked a bit Emirates-like in its glossiness and fonts, though of course it had none of the astounding HD-level sophistication that EK’s ice interface (plus touchscreen handset!) has.

No sooner did I start the familiar Panasonic Voyager3D airshow than HL8360 blasted off and away into the midnight black, leaving behind first the shiny lights of Changi Airport, and then the bedazzling cityscape and seascape (ships) that typify every departure from this incredible isle. And so I was headed to the land of Blackpink and Gangnam Style, of Hyundai/Kia and LG and Samsung, of tteokbokki and dalgona, of Innisfree and Laneige, of Squid Game and Crash Landing on You — even if only for a few hours!

English lessons in Korean, anyone?: Entertainment (or lack thereof)

Minutes after takeoff, an ad was screened for Asiana Duty Free that showcased — in big English letters — the products on sale, followed by instructions in Korean on how to buy them, with English subtitles below. It makes me wonder: how lucrative, if at all, are inflight duty-free businesses nowadays… especially with airports as rich on luxury brands as Changi, Incheon and HKG?

I ventured into the fleet details page, and the model aircraft shown were very bare-bones, with a long list of specifications — I’ve seen it better on Thai Airways. That said, you could enlarge for a bigger view, but even then it showed only the right side of the aircraft. (And yes, the red chevron had been removed from all of them, leaving a plain Asiana Airlines wordmark.)

Meanwhile the destination network was much more impressive, and I’m happy to see that OZ even serves Central Asian cities like Almaty and Tashkent — neither of which is served by even Korean Air — plus Ulaanbaatar, which KE does serve. This is something that Japanese and Taiwanese airlines will never do — and neither does Cathay Pacific, despite CX having a much bigger global network. Can you imagine JAL or EVA, heavily transpacific-focused as they are, flying to Istanbul or Astana?! Heck, they (and the Taiwanese airlines in particular) would much rather serve Boston than Bengaluru or Berlin…

That said, Korean Air has a much bigger European network than Asiana, serving the likes of Prague and Budapest — all while OZ can experiment only as far as Barcelona (not served by KE) and Istanbul. For that matter, Asiana’s Japanese partner ANA has expanded its European network recently — including Vienna, Brussels and Istanbul (Star Alliance hubs all) plus Stockholm and Milan, whereas JAL goes no further than Oneworld hub Helsinki, and leaves the rest of the Eastern European heavy-lifting to Qatar Airways.

Lastly, I read a bit about the Asiana Club frequent-flyer programme — what a generic name! Not a patch on EVA’s Infinity MileageLands — as well as the Magic Miles programme for children under 12, and also (curiously) had a look about Korean immigration forms.

Not that I like to use airline-branded headphones, given how uncomfortable they are, but…

…this time around there was something too good to resist for me, and I did not hesitate to rip open that bag of headphones. Under the ‘Travel Communication’ section were a whole bunch of Korean-language videos to teach English, Japanese and Chinese — that too in various contexts (on the plane, at the hotel, travelling, etc.)! What an interesting find, indeed! In each of them (I opened only some English videos), a youngish, thirtysomething woman introduces some common English phrases for a Korean audience — pausing for effect, intoning in all the right places — all while showing off her smile. I might add that the videos were somewhat old and grainy, given their 2000s-era 4:3 aspect ratio, but that only added to the charm and friendliness.

I was enraptured by them, and watched them for a good twenty minutes or so before I explored other areas of the OZ:enter entertainment system. Obviously, they were lacklustre in terms of content selection — and other than a few names in the K-pop recent releases, it was really nothing to write home about. Not that you’d need to watch any movies, when all you could do was watch those teaching videos for hours… Similar to what I did at the end of 2023 on a Vietnam Airlines 787-10, where the airline’s corporate videos were infinitely more fascinating than any movie!

I was surprised that there was even an Indian film on OZ:enter in the first place; I wasn’t expecting any. This was none other than 3 Idiots (2009), Bollywood’s iconic landmark that questioned the education system with its signature ‘aal izz well’ credo, and remains immensely relevant — including to East Asians — all these years after. (For the record, major parts of the movie were shot in IIM Bangalore — the same elite Indian business school where I’ve joined now!)

When in Seoul, do as the Koreans do — and don’t have a beef with beef

Presently, 45 minutes after departure (12:30am SGT/1:30am KST), some flight attendants — almost all female and Korean (though one was Vietnamese) — started rolling down the meal carts, while I was sifting through some more nooks and crannies of the OZ:enter interface.

Among these crannies was a section on inflight wellness, with illustrations that were refreshingly retro and not the long-limbed Corporate Memphis that’s been the trend even before COVID hit.

S.J. Cha was the one serving me, and she read out the choices: either bibimbap or the Western dish, namely fish with rice. It was a no-brainer for me: as my caption stated, ‘you don’t fly a Korean airline and not have their bibimbap’. Now KE has been guilty of serving the same old bibimbap for years in Business and First Class, all while ANA and JAL continue to floor the critics with their washoku and Western cuisines alike… but since this was my first time having bibimbap, I wasn’t one to say no!

She handed out a tray having a dish with most of the ingredients of bibimbap. There was a whole smörgåsbord of sides and accompaniments to add flavour, or to complement the meal. (a) Soybean paste soup with spinach and dry shrimps (in the tub in my hand); (b) plain rice (in the aluminium-foil container); © a bowl of cut fruits for dessert; (d) some sort of kimchi salad in the red cup to the right of the tray; (e) a sachet of spicy gochujang sauce; (f) a sachet of sesame oil (last row, right); and (g) a guide on how to make bibimbap.

There was also my obligatory can of Sprite to round of the proceedings in a decidedly non-Korean manner — though many passengers decided to keep things Korean and wash it all down with Cass beer.

At the centre of the bowl of bibimbap was a small container with minced beef. While I’m a practising Hindu, as most Indians are, East Asia is definitely one part of the world where it gets much easier (I feel) to travel if you eat pork or beef. As such, even though my religion prohibits consumption of beef in theory, I make an exception when it comes to travelling in Korea, Japan and Taiwan, given how beef- and pork-heavy countries they are.

At least Japan has as many chicken karaages and teriyakis as it has beef gyudons, but it’s much harder to avoid beef on a Korean airline. That was also the case with the next flight on the OZ A380, where I was served wagyu beef yuxiang egg noodles. While I don’t wish to eat beef if I can help it, I must confess that both these Korean dishes tasted excellent — especially the noodles on the A380 to NRT, among the best breakfast dishes I’ve had on East Asian airlines.

Here, too, the bibimbap was healthy, packed with flavour and crunchy — though I somehow managed to spill some of the sesame oil on my shirt, resulting in a very distinctive odour (though not a bad one) that persisted all the way until I reached my hotel in Tokyo… (And since I can’t stand any spice whatsoever, the gochujang sauce packet remained untouched.)

Funnily enough, as my caption below states, the Singaporean woman at the next seat saw me mixing the veggies and minced beef with the plain rice. She laughed and said, ‘You’re supposed to mix the oil and spices into the rice!’
‘I would’ve done that,’ I replied, ‘but I can’t tolerate spice.’
‘Then you could’ve ordered the fish and rice!’
‘Maybe, but if I’m flying a Korean airline, I need to have their bibimbap!’

Throughout this exchange, she barely touched the Western fish dish lying on her tray table, which was then taken away largely uneaten. Her husband slept throughout — with a sticker saying Did you have a good rest? placed in front of his seat — and soon she followed suit by putting on a Biocare face mask.

As soon as the meal was done, passengers started to kick back and either sleep or watch movies, though the cabin crew took their time to clear the dishes. It would, however, be a bit longer before the lights were dimmed as well. For fifteen or so minutes, the lights remained on — culminating in a sudden bright flash of mood lighting in Asiana’s trademark beige-brown colour — and then they went out at last, as we were overflying Taiwan.

10 May 2025, as I noted, was a day of great importance in my history books — I’d be visiting two new countries in one day, which was a first for me. Then, for the first time ever in my life, I switched my phone from my usual +8 to the +9 time zone used in Korea and Japan — proof that this was the furthest east I’d been so far.

Before I drifted off to sleep for a couple of hours, I wrote down a few more random observations in my photo captions. However, no sooner did the seatbelt sign come on than every single seatback monitor on the A350 came on simultaneously — and no doubt many passengers might have been irritated… They stayed on for a good five minutes before turning black thereafter.

At least this was better than what I experienced two weeks later, on a short 2-hour late-night hop on China Airlines’ A321neo, from Taipei to Manila. Not only did the A321neo have crystal-sharp, cutting-edge IFE screens, but they were so blindingly bright-white — especially with the heavy number of regulatory instructions shown after the safety video — that it wasn’t the most pleasant setting for my eyes to be in… (That said, the cabins themselves are exquisitely designed and highly modern… though Cathay Pacific’s A321neos are much sleeker still, despite not having lie-flat Business Class seats like China Airlines’.)

Finally, I could once again experience that thrilling sensation of whooshing through the night skies to an unknown, exciting country — two, in fact, this time around — on an unknown, exciting (and not very Westernised) airline!

Clear above, foggy below, massive all around: Landing at Incheon Airport

Before I knew it, light — and by light I mean morning sunshine — had streamed into the cabin, slowly waking up the passengers. I’d been sleeping for nearly two hours, about a third of the nearly six-hour flight, and seeing the four-coloured winglet of the OZ A350 glint against the clear skies and fluffy clouds was a treat to behold.

Now OZ is one of several UNICEF airline partners for its ‘Change for Good’ programme, alongside Cathay Pacific, JAL, American Airlines, easyJet, Cebu Pacific, etc. About 30 minutes before landing, a video was screened showing numerous children from across the world — be it Africa, India, Latin America or Southeast Asia — who have benefited from passengers’ kind monetary contributions, along with a message from UNICEF’s Korean ambassador Ahn Sung-ki.

Every little dollar — or, in Korean terms, 1000 won — made a big difference to the life of a child, or many. Sadly, when it came to actually contributing to the cause, hardly anyone volunteered to place any cash in the envelopes that the flight attendants so graciously handed out! Not because people didn’t care, but because they simply did not have the energy to fish out cash, in any currency, from their wallets… 😥

This was followed by an exercise video where cabin crew stretched their neck, arms, legs and what have you. Several passengers joined in the stretching, but I stayed put. (And notice that little part of a line — circled in the last row below — that Asiana forgot to remove when removing the chevron from its logo? Uh-oh!)

At 6:15 Korean time we were on final descent to Seoul/Incheon International Airport: one of the biggest transportation hubs in Northeast Asia — and, indeed, the world. ICN is in every way a massive facility that beggars belief, and airside shots of the hundreds of KE, Asiana, Delta and other aircraft are proof of just how diverse it is.

Too bad practically nothing was visible outside the windows, because they had fogged up almost entirely, leaving almost zero visibility. In any case, my first touchdown on Korean soil took place a little before half-past six, with the sun well up. There was precious little to be seen above the sharp, multicoloured winglet of the A350 as she skimmed to a stop, bypassing the giant Asiana Airlines facility, before turning towards the apron where several KE planes were parked.

As if to add insult to injury, the views from the window soon disintegrated into a drizzle that ruined what would have been my first pictures of this global megahub’s diverse airlines. A KE A350 — which I’d see later that week at Fukuoka — and an Air Premia 787, which I could see only with my naked eye and not my iPhone, were the first unmistakable signs of ICN. Thereafter came no fewer than three aircraft from KE’s SkyTeam partner Vietnam Airlines, parked side by side, and numerous aircraft from South Korea’s many budget carriers.

HL8360 came to rest beside a fellow A350, HL7579, and my iPhone failed to capture even the most basic details amidst the rain. My naked eye, however, could see every little thing, down to the tiny ‘A350-900’ text next to the rear door!

Not far from us was parked an A380 that turned out to be none other than HL7364, which would carry me to Japan in a couple of hours’ time. Of course you wouldn’t know from the pictures below, given that practically nothing could be seen…

The passengers rose in a body, and filed out of the aircraft, most of them onto Korean home soil — though there were a few foreigners (including Singaporeans) and transit passengers like me. I said only a very short thank-you to the flight attendants, knowing that Korean airlines’ cabin crew tend to be much more reserved and reticent than their Japanese counterparts.

At long, long last, I could step out the door of the A350 and admire her sleek, sexy body and wingtips, something that wasn’t possible back in Singapore. Next door stood HL8074, an A321 that was no less long and elegant in shape — with a sharklet to match. Not to mention that number 360 on the nosewheel door… my ’360-degree’ trip was only just starting!

Of course, my Asiana journey was far from over, as now I had to proceed through the transfer counters at ICN. Only now, without the hindrance of the windows blocking my view, could I have a clear look at the aircraft on the tarmac before stepping on Korean soil for the first time.

A hypermodern airport, filled with traditions — like South Korea itself

I turned right towards the unending arrival/transfer corridor of ICN Terminal 1, which in my opinion reminds me of the sheer length of Mumbai T2’s arrival corridor — though that one is filled to the brim with Indian art and culture. ICN’s equivalent was a long list of landscapes across the Korean peninsula, plus the island of Jeju.

While much more impersonal and cold than Manila T3 and its jeepneys the previous week, this was as fluidly functional as a global megahub airport should look like, instead of the tattered, broken look that MNL gave me. At least there was a row of OZ planes — including HL7634, my upcoming A380 — outside the window to keep me company and keep me happy.

Some more of the same: Korean art installations and culture to the left — with surprisingly no ads! — and more Asiana aircraft, including A330s, A321neos, A350s and 777-200ERs, to the right. Not to mention, this corridor looked much better than HKG’s arrival corridors, which felt too white and sterile and had too many ads — much as I love HKG’s departure facilities to bits.

With my phone having connected to the free Wi-Fi — never mind the non-existent SKT cellular data connection — I wished my mom a Good (Foggy) Morning from Seoul, where one of my childhood friends works for Samsung.

Besides local HL-registered aircraft, there were a handful of Southeast Asian arrivals: a Malaysia Airlines A330-300, a Thai Airways A350, a Vietnam Airlines 787-9, etc. Indeed, overnight flights are more or less the norm from Southeast Asia to Korea — unlike Taiwan, where such overnight flights are all but non-existent outside China Airlines!

At length I finally reached the point where arriving passengers turn left towards Immigration, and transfer passengers proceed straight and right. Of course there was no time to do a free transit tour — not that I was from a visa-waiver country anyway, as Korean tourist visas aren’t especially easy to get for Indians.

I U-turned and headed towards the transfer desks, just as the clock was striking seven. The windows gave me royal (or should that be Royal Orchid?) views of Thai Airways’ HS-THF, the first A350 I ever flew, three years ago in June 2022.

ICN’s slogan of ‘Expect Exceptional‘ welcomed me to the transfer security counters, and it was a quick, seamless process. Plus I loved the various gobal landmarks, like Singapore’s Merlion, India’s Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building in New York City, on the walls. This led me to a small waiting lounge, whre various cultural initiatives by the airport were being screened on pairs of TVs.

Among those cultural initiatives was a virtual tour of Korean tourist sites, where all one had to do was to wear a VR headset and transport oneself to a heritage attraction, replete with attire. But I didn’t need any of that, for waiting for me upstairs was the Airstar Avenue and a lovely Korean heritage centre with adorable things to take home! 🥰