After spending just short of a week in Hanoi, I went back to Seoul with my family. Our return flight would be on the day flight, out of the two daily flights by Korean Air to Hanoi. Before COVID, there used to be 3 daily service to Hanoi with from what I remember 2 777-300ERs and an A330-300, but it seems that demand hasn't recovered to before COVID levels unlike some other routes like ICN-BKK or ICN-SIN.
Going through check in I was greeted by a sign acknowledging a 20 minute delay. 20 minutes is not that big of a deal so I didn't care for it too much.
Hanoi Airport always seems to be crowded one way or another. In January of 2024, it seemed like there was a bit of expansion going on. This caused traffic congestion coming into the airport, and the check in hall seemed to be more cramped than usual. As the airport is only about 10 years old, it was pretty clean all round.
The departure schedule for the day. The slow security as always hampered our progress a bit but I was through to airside about 2 hours before departure time.
Couldn't believe the amazing weather for my flight today. Really made the spotting fun. You can see lots of different carriers for the midday departure and arrival slot. Probably the busiest time of the day for the airport alongside the 10pm to midnight, 1am slot with departures to Europe, Oceania and Korea/Japan.
Was pleased to see VN-A356 at the gate. It is a former Cambodia Angkor Air aircraft which was returned to Vietnam Airlines, the parent company. The fuselage still being in the former airline's colors while the nosecone and engine cowlings seem to be swapped to Vietnam Airline's original colors make it an interesting sight to see. While searching for this airframe online, I found out it had been repainted into the standard livery.
My plane for today, HL7584, a 25 year old Airbus A330, seen just arriving from ICN as KE441.
My plane taxiing to the gate. You can see how half of the windows on the left side of the plane are closed. It seems like airline policy on windows changed some time in the past. I remember when it was mandatory to open the windows during taxi, takeoff and landing.
It also seems like HAN likes to utilize follow me cars for taxiing. I can't remember if it was the previous flight or the flight I took in May, but after landing we were also lead by a follow me car. Cool to see them in action, as we don't get much of it at ICN.
Our flight today will be boarded through gate 32. As an avid fan of the former logo for Korean Air, I do greatly miss it, now looking back. I remember being disappointed when Formula 1 had a rebrand and came up with that new logo back in 2017. I used to like youtube comments saying 'Nice logo lol' whenever the official F1 channel uploaded with the old logo. I guess I just can't accept change lightly.
If you're boarding in HAN, you go through this nicely carpeted slope after your ticket has been checked. Back when I was a kid, this used to be the trigger making my fingers tingle before my flight.
Boarding. The stains around the window makes it look old, but I have certainly seen much worse.
Also very interesting to see a marking for the Boeing 737-600, which I'd presume has never been used.
My view for this 4 hour flight. You can really see just how big the wing is on this A330. Even the winglets which looked tiny whenever I saw them through pictures looked big when I looked at them in real life. One disappointing thing about the old livery is how the winglets are not painted in any aircraft type. They have fixed this with the new livery, but I much prefer the old livery even with these bland winglets when seen from the passenger view.
The safety card for Korean Air's A330. The seats themselves are the same as the 291-seater 77W, with the painfully slow IFE.
Noi Bai International Airport signage.
We took off from runway 11R and followed the NAKHA 3A procedure up North. Our cruising altitude today would be FL370. As we climb, you can see the pollution that fills the sky. There is almost a distinct layer of smog.
Left turn heading for NAKHA.
Our meal was served as we passed Guilin. I went with the fried rice with chicken option, with orange juice. One interesting thing here is that as the catering was done in HAN, everything has Korean Air branding except the bread where you can see the Vietnam Airlines lotus on the packaging.
Seat pocket literature.
After the meal service had finished, the cabin lights were dimmed and I was asked to close my window shade.
Messed up my shot, but you can see the old overhead panels with the crew call signages and air nozzles.
Going past Shanghai, you'd never be able to guess this was the daytime flight. I wanted to see out the window as after all I had chosen a window seat but the sunset itself made it hard to open my shade.
You can see how the sunset and my position made it hard with the reflections and the ray itself. I had originally chosen the A side window seat because I wanted to get a good view of the sunset, but I had not realized that the ray being directly in your sight made things difficult anyway. I probably should've chosen the other side, where I could get a view with the registration written on the wing.
Another quirk, the A330s or at least this one, HL7584, seem to have the registration written in blue, as opposed to black like any other aircraft.
A look at the cabin from behind. You can see the overhead compartments are closer to the ones you'd see on the 767, than the ones you'd see on the A350 or even the 777. After all, this is an airframe made in 2000.
We were treated to an amazing sunset while descending as we head north on Y722. I don't think I'd ever be tired of looking at the sunset while in the sky.
We landed on runway 33L, just about on time. We taxied to the gate and parked up next to the 773 HL7534, which seems to have reached the end of its life since then.
