Review of Asiana Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Seoul in Business

Background/Routing

This series will cover a recent family trip to Asia. We will kick things off with probably one of my last chances to catch the OZ A380:

Check-in

We arrived at LAX at 18:45 with a lot less traffic than expected enroute. Heading into TBIT we headed off towards Aisle C where most *A carriers are handled.

OZ doesn’t open its counters for OZ203 until 19:00 so we just joined the already formed queue. At 18:55, the agents sent everyone from the business class line to all available counters first, which I thought was a good gesture. Our agent was 3rd party, but very good and had us on our way quickly instructing us to do pre-boarding at 22:10 ahead of the scheduled boarding time and confirming we know how to access both the PreCheck check point and the Star Alliance Lounge.

There was no line at PreCheck and we were airside by 19:15.

We went straight to the elevators to go up to the Star Alliance Lounge on the 6th floor.

Star Alliance Lounge

We were scanned in by some smiling agents.

At this time, the lounge was moderately busy since the TATL block was nearing the end and most TPACs don’t depart until much later.

We grabbed some seats on the indoor terrace and checked out the buffet.

Food offering was very weak for dinner so I just did the noodle bar, which again is significantly worse than what MU lounges offer.

After 30 minutes of sitting there, an announcement was made that there was a barbecue and wine tasting outside for Matariki (Māori New Year). The wines were being offered by The Landing, we sampled the Rose, Chardonnay, and Syrah and found them all underwhelming. The so called "barbecue" consisted of hot dogs.

The FIDS tonight, we are one of the first TPACs to leave.

Boarding

Since we were leaving from Gate 154, it was only a 5-7 minute walk to the gate.

We arrived at the gate just as they were starting to organize the lines and we headed straight up to do pre-boarding. OZ technically states it is for children <5, but they insisted we pre-board.

We will head up the escalators to board via the upper deck jet-bridge.

The only view of our plane I’ll get this trip. It will be HL7634, a 10-year old A380, that was stored for ~3 of those years. It has OZ's standard F12 (1-2-1), C66 (1-2-1), and Y417 (3-4-3 / 2-4-2) configuration.

We entered and turned right to head into the main J cabin, laid out in the expected 1-2-1 configuration consisting of OZ's version of Stelia Solstys seats. We took seats near the rear of the main J cabin. I could access the forward J mini-cabin with my status, but there were no more honeymoon pairs left in that cabin so we settled for the main cabin.

As a family, we did the honeymoon seats and I took the seat across the aisle. It means I get the less private aisle adjacent seat.

The rows behind us. If you notice, they left pens and immigration cards for passengers whose final destination was Korea, which is a proactive personalized touch.

Seat Tour

Their Solstys product dates back to the introduction of the A380s to the OZ fleet back in 2014. They aren’t bad seats overall, but lack features you see on newer products (higher resolution screens, more USB ports, and storage).

Though as a “window” seat, the A380 offers a pair of bins per seat so I can't really criticize the lack of storage too much.

Seat pitch is of course good.

The foot cubby is enclosed, which is not always the case for Solstys products.

Pre-placed on the seat are the bedding consisting of pillow, blanket, and mattress topper.

The FAs walked down the aisle handing out menus and greeted passengers while boarding commenced. One obvious omission from the pre-departure service is pre-departure drinks, which is quite disappointing. The side table is overflowing with items.

Like many other carriers, OZ has axed hot towels so there are 3 pre-packaged towels placed at your seat for on-demand use throughout the flight. These are 100% cotton and quite good for packaged ones. There is also a bottle of water, amenity kit, headphones, and literature (~250 page duty free catalog).

Slippers and menus. Like NH, the bags have been ditched in favor of more environmentally friendly paper sleeves.

The side table contains the seat controls, IFE remote, and a small storage nook.

The tray table folds down from the seat back.

110V outlet on the front of the side table.

Safety card sleeve.

Menus

The menu on this flight, which consists of dinner, mid-flight snacks, and breakfast. Dinner and drink orders were taken by the crew and they confirmed our son's CHML.

The drinks offering is very strong, but does not put OZ in the premier category.

Safety Video and Taxi

The view from my seat as we prepare for push back. A SYD-bound QF A380 next door.

As mentioned, they privacy is not great for people on the aisle seats, but on a flight completely in the dark where everyone sleeps it is not a big deal since there is very minimal traffic up/down the aisle outside of the crew.

The safety video played as we started our push back at 23:07.

Our content creator across the aisle recording the safety video.

We start our taxi out past the satellite building.

PR B77W.

The view of the cabin before departure.

Take Off from LAX

Aligning onto runway 24L.

We take off at 23:25.

Goodbye LAX.

In-Flight Entertainment

The IFE is active after the safety video and features OZ's newest generation interface also seen on the A350s. The content is okay, but the interface makes navigation difficult since everything is nested so there is a lot of back and forth needed to browse content.

In addition to a camera, there is also the standard moving map offering.

The IFE is touch screen, but can also be controlled through the remote that shares the same user interface.

There is no Wi-Fi on the A380s (only A350s have it). If they had it, I wouldn't have used it anyways so not a feature that would dissuade me from flying OZ.

Amenities

OZ currently uses AIGNER in its amenity kits, but the kit design remains unchanged from previous L'Occitane versions. From out-stations it is a blue pouch with a fabric texture. The contents are socks, eye mask, ear plugs, comb, dental kit, and a pouch containing the AIGNER products (lip balm, face moisturizer, and hand cream).

The provided headphones are not up to industry standards and were not tested.

Dinner Service

The tray table is large and sturdy. When deployed, it can also be pivoted to allow aisle access.

Service started just 20 minutes into the flight with linens being laid.

Drinks and appetizers were then served by trolley.

Since I opted for the Korean meal, the appetizer is Beef Vegetable Roll. It was decent, but unmemorable.

Cutlery is also meal specific so just a pair of chopsticks and spoon are offered.

As the plates are cleared, the trolley returns with mains. Here are the Western mains as the trolley passes. I have previously found OZ to do Western meals quite well in the past and my wife confirmed the chicken and pasta dish was better than expected.

For the Korean meal, it is the expected bibimbap. A slightly more elevated version than you get in Y and slightly less elevated than what you used to get in F. 

The bibimbap ingredients pre-mixing.

Kimchi, lotus root, and gochujang.

Bean paste soup.

Not a very imaginative meal, but satisfying nonetheless.

For some reason, the FA had brought me my fruit plate early as she cleaned my table and topped off my Riesling.

The trolley then arrived for the after dinner service. Cheese plates are typically only offered as part of Western meals, but you can ask for one if you want.

I was offered port wine from the cart, but asked for cognac instead which was quickly delivered.

After the cheese/fruit plates are cleared, desserts are then offered from another trolley along with the tea/coffee service. I do like that OZ offers the small dish for your tea bag as part of the tea service.

The Korean dessert is the standard packaged rice cake and bean jelly.

Meal service concluded just 90 minutes into the flight as we were leaving Northern California and the cabin was dimmed for sleep. 

Mid-Flight

The lavatories are large and contain a window. They were clean throughout the flight and feature a number of amenities.

My bed as I prepare for sleep.

Our son passed out during the taxi at LAX and awoke as we were approaching Japan. He had a solid 9 hours of sleep and I had a solid 6.5 hours on what was a fairly smooth TPAC crossing with almost no turbulence.

Since he didn't eat dinner on the plane, I ordered him a fruit plate and coffee for myself.

Breakfast Service

A little while later as we were approaching Honshu, the cabin lights started to come back on for breakfast service.

After a round of juices and water, the linens were laid.

Breakfast service is done by tray and starts with a fruit plate.

Warm pastries were offered from a basket.

Tea and coffee was offered as plates were cleared.

Mains were then distributed via trolley. I opted for the Beef Vegetable Porridge, which is always a comforting meal at the end of a long flight.

The breakfast service ended with just a little over an hour to go. Coffee and tea were offered again as the cabin was being cleared of service items.

The pilots came on and announced final descent over central Korea.

Arrival into ICN

The cabin as we prepare for a very early arrival into Incheon.

Clearing the sea wall.

A very sleepy ICN T1 as we land at 03:36 on runway 33L, almost an hour early.

Making our way back to the terminal.

Humid morning in Seoul as we approach our gate next to an OZ A359.

We are on stand at 03:45 after a very quick taxi back to T1 with no traffic on the taxiways.

The upper deck jet bridge was slow to engage with passengers already exiting from the lower deck, but eventually we were able to deplane with a warm farewell from the crew.

Off we go towards security.

Transit Experience

Arriving at Gate 17, we had a long walk back to the security checkpoint. Based on how slow security has been at ICN during our last 2 visits, we tried to overtake as many people as possible enroute.

Signage is clear.

We were among the first 10-15 people to arrive at the checkpoint, but there was only one lane open at this hour. We arrived at 03:56 and from time stamps and it would take ~15 minutes for us to clear security (~1 minute per passenger). The line was >100 people by the time we reached the detectors so I feel sorry for those still filtering off the A380. Another very poor transit experience at ICN.

Finally clearing security, we head upstairs to start our layover in ICN.

I'll leave off this series here, thanks for stopping by!

Flight Details

Asiana Airlines, OZ203
Equipment: Airbus A380 [HL7634, delivered May 2015]
Departure: 23:00 (ATD: 23:25)
Arrival: 04:20 (ATA: 03:36)
Flight time: 12:11