Review: Korean Air 747-400 Business Class (ICN-HKG)

Note

I write trip reports for a hobby, and like to think that I get better over time. This report was written in June 2016, and falls in the oldie-but-not-so-goodie category of trip reports – blurry photos taken with an iPhone 5, and a not-so-useful content focus.

I’ve left the post up for aviation nuts who like any and all reviews, though if you’re looking for a comprehensive review: you’re more likely to be flying Korean Air’s 747-8 (review here). This product doesn’t exist anymore, though I reviewed it in 2015 with a slightly better camera.

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SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong
Hong Kong Airport Midfield Terminal
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Plaza Premium Lounge Vancouver
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Cathay Pacific A330 Economy Class Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur
The Boulevard by St. Giles Kuala Lumpur
Cathay Pacific A330 Economy Class Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong

When I checked the flight status once I got connected to WiFi at Seoul Incheon, I realised my flight was, as expected, downgraded to a 747-400, but obviously, that still came with a bit of disappointment. However, the nail in the coffin was when I went on the Korean Air website, where I learned that our 20-year-old plane was turning in from Hong Kong, and our flight would be late.

I made it to the lounge, where the lounge attendant said, “you know your flight’s delayed, right?” I nodded, and proceeded to get into the lounge.

Korean Air Prestige Lounge Seoul Incheon Airport

Apart from being way emptier, there really wasn’t any difference to the lounge from when I last visited it in April 2015, thus I won’t be reviewing it this time around.

Korean Air Prestige Lounge Seoul Incheon Airport

I settled down near one of the pods facing the tarmac, facing the Korean Air 747-8 that we were originally scheduled to fly on. Apparently one of the 747-8s had a technical issue, so rather than replacing longhaul routes with angled lie flats, they restructured the schedules so the shorthaul routes would be stuck on the 747s instead. Smart.

Korean Air Boeing 747-8 Seoul Incheon Airport

I had a peek at my own ride, one of Korean Air’s older 747s.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Seoul Incheon Airport

I was able to get a better look prior to boarding, though my spirits were kind of down, especially since I was kind of tired and was anticipating a slightly longer 747 all along.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Seoul Incheon Airport

The gate seemed to take the equipment swap pretty seriously, and put up a banner regarding all the details of the swap.

Equipment Swap Details Seoul Incheon Airport

Boarding started with first class, followed by business and economy class.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Seoul Incheon

Before we boarded, it started to snow. That really didn’t speak well of our punctuality into Hong Kong. I tried to be sneaky and asked if there were four seats in rows 1-5 available, but apparently the flight was completely full out.

Korean Air Flight 607
Monday, February 15, 2016
Origin: Seoul Incheon (ICN) Gate: 12 Dep: 20:00 (22:40)
Destination: Hong Kong (HKG) Gate: 18 Arr: 22:55 (01:05+1)
Duration: 3 hr 55 min (3 hr 25 min)
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400 Reg: HL7495
Seat: 17B/17J (Business Class)

In case anyone needs a refresher, the seatmap is as follows:

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seatmap Lower Deck

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seatmap Upper Deck

We first walked through the lower deck. While it’s still better than economy, I’ll get out of my way to not get stuck here.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class (Lower Deck)

I took a peek at economy, which at this point has pretty outdated seats (they looked dated in 2015, and it’s 2016…) The seats looked really comfortable, but the TV looked pretty unusable.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Economy Class

I walked up the stairs with my luggage, and made my way to the second row of the upper deck. I enjoyed my seat selection, which was in the second row – I found it to be pretty private, something I can’t say about the last row that I sat in last time.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class

I sat in 17B, which would’ve been a pretty enclosed aisle seat on the 747-8 right before the emergency exit. Here it was a pretty normal aisle seat, which I wasn’t as fine with, given that I wanted to sleep (not that I’d get awesome sleep on an angled flat seat anyway, but I was really tired).

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seat 17A and 17B

While it probably wouldn’t be my last time on Korean Air (I won’t give up until I score the new product), I was about to make sure that it was my last flight on the product, so I went a bit picture happy despite the time. After all, I had some pretty solid sleep on the flight before, and originally scheduled this to be rather more of a picture tour than anything else.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Shoe Bins

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seat Controls

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Side Bins

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Lamps

Legroom was obviously substantially less, and after four flights on the newer product it almost (read: almost) seemed cramped.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Legroom

Keeping in mind that this may be my last time ever on a Korean Air 747-400, I took some pictures of the actual aircraft material too.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Ceiling

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Windows

I visited the lavatory when I got onboard, which was standard and of no real “business class” quality.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Lavatory

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Mouthwash

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Toilet Amenities

Row 16 seemed to have slightly more legroom, but I wouldn’t really want to be sitting there given how close it was to the toilet.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seat 16A and 16B

The screen showed the “Airplane Mode warning”.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class “Airplane Mode” Warning

When my parents came onboard, my sister pretty much immediately knocked out at her seat (no, she didn’t sleep at all on the Vancouver-Seoul leg), so my mom offered me a switch to window seat 17J, which I took.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Seat 17H and 17J

The flight attendant came by with drinks. While she was infinitely better than those from the previous flight, there was only one of her, so it wasn’t the most attentive service in the world. I’m fine with that, though, as she was genuine, friendly and looked like she wanted to be there.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Drinks and Nuts

After the drinks service, we pushed back – only for it to snow even harder. After our pushback, we stayed there for a while – after half an hour or so, the captain said that we would be delayed for de-icing. It was the first time I had ever been flown by a Korean pilot, which was pretty exciting.

Korean Air Airbus A330-200 Seoul Incheon Airport

We rolled over to de-icing, where we parked next to another Korean Air 747-400. The amount of 747-400s at Seoul Incheon that day didn’t look so good…

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Seoul Incheon Airport

I had a look at the menu while we de-iced and waited for takeoff (around another 45 minutes), including the return trip’s. The flight attendant came around with orders – my dad and I both wanted the soup, but the flight attendant came back after a while saying there was only one portion left. Stupidly, I didn’t go for the bibimbap and went for the chicken breast instead.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Dinner Menu

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Light Meal Menu

Meanwhile, the flight attendant came by with more drinks. While the service wasn’t one of the best I’ve ever had, she was incredibly friendly, especially in the conditions we were in.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Nuts and Drinks

I slept for a bit, then we cleared for takeoff – due to lighting issues, I didn’t manage any photos.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Cabin

I had a look at the downstairs cabin, which had the lights turned off. I stand by the fact that it doesn’t seem like the best place to be on the plane…

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Lower Deck

I watched an episode of what I think was about Korean food (it was late, and I didn’t take any notes, and…)

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Food Episode

Soon the food started rolling in, which started with smoked salmon with fennel salad – actually smoked, this time, unlike the salmon I had on my first ever Korean Air flight last April. It tasted like what you’d expect it to – it was one of those prepackaged, thin slabs of salmon (and not actual thick cuts), but I see these in restaurants too, so…

The fennel salad was good, but a bit bland (I hate it when salad isn’t dressed properly).

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Appetiser – Smoked Salmon with Fennel Salad

This was followed by bread, which was pretty good, I guess.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Appetiser Bread

The flight attendant served coke, which I took. For those people who are complaining about me being hypocritical about the coke that I was served on the flight prior, look at this one and compare the difference.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Drink Service

This was soon followed by a lentil cream soup, which tasted like…lentils. It wasn’t bad, but nowhere close to the best soups I’ve had on Korean Air.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Soup – Lentil Cream Soup

For the main course I stupidly ordered the chicken, which was dry and chewy, unaided by the tiny-portioned champagne cream sauce or the potato gratin. It was almost as bad as the chicken I had from Paris to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific (well I can’t really still feel it in my mouth, so it wasn’t memorably horrible, but the picture below kind of gives you an idea of how overcooked it was).

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Main Course – Roasted Chicken Breast with Champagne Cream Sauce Served with Potato Gratin and Mixed Vegetables

My dad had the beef bone soup, the one I wanted – it was bland, unflavourful, and had the cheap salt on the side like the breakfast I had from Seoul to Vancouver a few days prior.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Main Course – Korean Beef Bone Soup served with Steamed Rice and Side Dishes

Yeah…so if there’s no beef tenderloin served on your flight on Korean Air, go for the bibimbap. Period. Along with the fish and the chicken on the previous flight, the main course here was rather underwhelming.

While ice cream sounded good, for this specific flight I really wanted fruit for dessert instead, so I went with that. The fruit was good, as always.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Dessert – Seasonal Fresh Fruit

Dinner was finished somewhere north of Taipei, around two hours into the flight. After dinner, I tried to sleep, but in vain, given that the family at the back had their iPads on at full volume the whole time (I mean, geez, this probably made me wish most that I wanted to be on a 747-8, given that there’s an exit row on that plane between rows 17 and 18).

I stared out the window a bit, and realised how nice it was to stare at stars (yes, they still exist) on the upper deck of the Queen of the Skies. However, after ten minutes or so that got boring.

I resorted to finishing up the work I should’ve done on the flight prior, as I didn’t originally plan to work on this flight. Given the time, I did eventually manage to work myself to sleep, which was good.

I woke up pretty close to Hong Kong, definitely past 12 Hong Kong time.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Airshow

The flight attendant passed out drinks to everyone. I chose the orange juice, which airlines never go wrong with.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Drinks – Orange Juice

Soon we started our descent into Hong Kong. I didn’t get any decent pictures of the descent due to the darkness, so the pictures I had were all as follows (we descended over the water):

Views upon Descent Hong Kong

We did make quite a turn over the water before our descent, I suppose…

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Airshow upon Descent

Traffic at Hong Kong was much more interesting, due to the planes we get at this hour. We rolled past the midfield terminal again, but weren’t deplaning there this time.

Traffic Hong Kong Airport

We parked at gate 18, right next to a Korean Air 737 (which I also aspire to fly in the future).

Korean Air Boeing 737-900 Hong Kong Airport

As is the norm when at the front of the upper deck of a 747, we were one of the last in the cabin to deplane, so hurried to immigration before economy caught up with us.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Business Class Cabin upon Deplaning

I did manage to grab a picture of the bird, hopefully for the last time, before we were off to immigration and soon on the way home.

Korean Air Boeing 747-400 Hong Kong Airport

It wasn’t long until I was on my next trip, which is why I’m covering this all in the same report. (Don’t worry, exam season is over and I’ll probably be covering the reports one per day.)

Bottom Line

This was definitely a disappointing flight compared to what my expectations were. That said, I feel like the lone flight attendant serving me did her best to make up for it. Management at both Seoul Incheon and on the flight was amazing, and this really shows why I want to fly Korean Air.

Obviously, the food choices were lacking on this flight, and I’d make sure I choose either the bibimbap or the beef tenderloin should I be flying Korean Air again. But all in all, I enjoyed this flight.

Review: Korean Air 747-400 Business Class (ICN-HKG)

Note

Bottom Line

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