Review of Korean Air flight from New York to Seoul in Economy

All holidays have to come to an end. This trip was no exception. I traveled back alone on Korean Air economy class as this was an airline I've yet to try prior to this trip.
I've been reading positive things about KE economy, so I was about to verify these positive things myself.
Here is a recap of my current flight routing:

We took the Subway from Manhattan and the JFK Airtrain to get to JFK. This was more painless than expected.

Before flight: New York JFK Airport

As Korean Air departed from T1, I got off the Airtrain and waved goodbye to my wife, to embark on my little adventure of reviewing Korean Air long haul economy.

The walkway to JFK T1 from the JFK Airtrain station was modern enough. The travelators helped with my 19.8kg luggage, stuffed almost to the brim with tidbits bought from the USA.

As KE86 only opened for check-in at 9.30pm, I had around 2h of idle time, where I went to sit at a table in the foodcourt above. T1 was quite empty when I reached, but became more crowded as the flights to Asia opened their checkin desks.
I recall seeing Air China, EVA air and Turkish Airlines.

After idling for around 2h, I went to check-in and collect my boarding passes. I tried asking for a paid upgrade on either flights but KE86 was full to the brim, an anomaly at this time of the year, according to the check-in desk.
After checking in my luggage, I was dismayed to see the line for TSA. It must take at least 1.5h to clear, considering how strict TSA is. I decided to use my Priority Pass to save myself from that agony.

Lounge hop 1: VIP One lounge

The VIP One lounge claimed to allow bypass of TSA lines by placing people at the front of the line. As I had 4 priority passes that expire in February 2026, I decided to use 1 out of the 4 passes here.

The lounge is functional and did the job. I got myself some delicious nut mix and a few glasses of cranberry juice. Food was available for order via a QR code, but I didn't partake in that.
After the small snack and drink, I was led to the front of the TSA line, to the dismay of an Asian middle aged man who I was made to stand in front of. The lounge staff forced him to accept the outcome of queue jumping. This definitely saved at least 1.5h as 3 flights on large planes depart from T1 during that evening.
The TSA check was pretty strict, with one TSA agent visibly hating his job. We were all spoken to rudely by one agent as though none of us understood English.
However, I did observe some Asian passengers who adamantly refused to comply with instructions to take everything off their bodies. This delayed the queue to the ire of everybody.

Lounge hop 2: Primeclass lounge

After TSA, I set out to find a lounge where I could use another 1 out of 4 of my Priority Passes. Both Turkish Airlines and Air France turned me away as their lounges are full. Only Primeclass accepted me into the lounge.

The Primeclass lounge has good food and drinks, but was crowded when I visited. I shared a small table with a middle aged couple from the Philippines.
I got myself a glass of beer and some snacks.
The lounge had a great view of the airport as it was below the departures level. I spotted the Air China B747-8I from the lounge.
If one has plenty of priority passes, this is worth a stop, especially when food options past security are costly and look unremarkable.

After relaxing for almost 2h, I made my way to the gate where I spotted HL8008, a 10.2 year old B777-300ER that will take us to Incheon.

Inflight experience

With much excitement to try a new airline, I boarded the flight.

Korean Air has excellent legroom. They reported it to be 33-34 inches. I am 1.77m tall and I have a lot of space between my knees to the seatback.
Eat seat came with a pillow and blanket. To my surprise, each passenger was given a 500ml bottle of water! This came in handy to keep my hydrated during the flight.
The earphones given were the single use type, but we could take them home to use with our other devices if we wished.
The seating arrangement is a generous 3-3-3, which allows for ample shoulder room between passengers. Sadly this arrangement is getting to be a rarity these days, even on Korean Air, as we see in the next report.
The inflight entertainment is average. There was a decent selection of movies but not as many as Singapore Airlines or the middle eastern airlines. I found enough content to keep me occupied for the 15h.

1h after takeoff, the main meal was served. What a huge tray!
The choices were either beef stew with mashed potatoes or Bibimbap, a korean mixed rice dish.
As I know what Bibimbap tastes like, I decided to get the beef stew with mashed potatoes. This was surprisingly delicious!
There were two separate side salads, both tasted fine.
Dessert was sliced oranges, which I found extremely cheap of Korean Air. The Bibimbap meal had a korean pastry as a dessert.
I got red wine and coke zero for my meal.
The meal was very filling.

During meal tray collection, Korean Air also offered teabags to passengers to make their own tea. I'm impressed by this gesture as the tea tastes much better than the stuff from the metal pots.
In this flight, I tried both the korean green tea and the korean barley tea. Both were enjoyable to drink.

As this was a 15h flight, a snack basket was set up for passengers to serve themselves. Korean Air took the service up a notch by allowing passengers to serve wines to themselves in the drinks basket adjacent to the snack basket.
I raided the snack basket several rounds and asked for the different spirits on offer in their online menu.
They serve gin, vodka, whiskey, cognac but don't show it on the drinks cart during meal service. Definitely to keep costs down like Singapore Airlines in economy class.
The crew walked around mid-flight with heated pizza wraps. This was surprisingly delicious and did not taste like processed frozen food.

2h before landing, the crew served breakfast. There were two choices, either a continental breakfast consisting of a croissant and sweet pastry or scrambled eggs with ham as seen in this picture.
I was hoping to see a Korean option for breakfast but it didn't happen.
Both breakfast options came with a side of fruit yoghurt with a weird consistency, a big blueberry muffin and a side of sliced pineapple. The big blueberry muffin tasted good but had a very processed taste to it. The sliced pineapples were delightfully sweet.
I ordered tomato juice as my drink.

The scrambled eggs were a little bland, but I managed to get hold of some leftover gochujang paste from the crew. The tube of gochujang paste fixed the taste issue and made it a delicious breakfast.

After 14h 47 minutes of flight, we landed in Incheon at around 6am local time. I had an 8h transit after this flight.
It was a pleasant long haul flight with Korean Air. I would not hesitate to fly them again if they kept the 3-3-3 seating arrangement on their B777-300ERs.