Review: Korean Air Business Class 747-8 San Francisco To Seoul

Omg. Ice cream in a cup. So fail. Am i rite?

Love sfo and Korean women.

I feel like we had very similar experiences, which is funny.

I flew Prestige from ICN - JFK in January and also hated the early second meal. They woke us up 5 hours prior to landing, like you, and I was in the middle of just falling asleep, and wasn't very hungry. I couldn't fall asleep after that, which made the 13 hour redeye flight back not very fun.

I also felt the service was a bit robotic, but it didn't bother me until the second meal service. The hard product on the A380 isn't as great as the 747 obviously, but I really enjoyed it. I also seem to remember the purser announcing the crew as Chinese, although I was traveling with my friend who is Korean, and he knew they weren't Chinese. Very odd...

Would love to try the 747-8 Apex suites, but I have to say I like Asiana much better all around based on my experiences. Thanks for the review, Ben.

How did you book this flight? And is availability pretty wide open for KAL business class?

Lucky,

Only you could have a selection of 3 of the 9 Best Picture nominees from 2016 (La La Land, Arrival, Manchester By the Sea), another featuring a Best Actress nominee (Jackie), and several of the Top 50 grossing movies for 2016 (Beasts - #12, La La Land - #19, Arrival - #29, Girl on the Train - #41) and call it a bad selection.

Who gives a damn how nice the hard product is on a "business" seat if you can't get more than 4 hours sleep? Utter failure.

@ Ben -- It's not about the quality of the selection, but the quantity. Other airlines have hundreds of movies, including the ones Korean Air has.

@ Luis -- I redeemed Korean Air SkyPass miles. Availability was pretty good, though it's definitely better for first class than business class (which is what I'd recommend redeeming for anyway). Korean Air SkyPass has more availability in business class than for members of other frequent flyer programs.

I hated how little water was served on my recent J flight on Korean. I kept asking for bottled water and I probably drank five but still felt dehydrated. They are tiny!

Thanks Lucky, great trip report as always. Did you find the cabin to be warm? Its been a few years since I have flown Korean, but have some trips coming soon. Also, do you think the storage bin next to the window can hold a backpack?

@ Lee -- Thanks! I actually remember thinking the cabin was cool, which is unusual. The storage bin should definitely be big enough to hold a backpack.

What did Ford think of the window view from the aisle seat ?

They have no trouble boarding in 20 minutes in Asia. Americans are slow. I definitely admired their efficiency at seeing a sold-out 747 board in about 15 minutes in TPE. On the other hand, their c class VGML was seriously the most disappointing meal I've had on a foreign carrier in a long time.

I'm surprised no one has gently chided you for the China-based comment. On a domestic flight, if the announcement said "On behalf of your San Francisco based flight crew..." you wouldn't necessarily assumed they all lived in San Francisco or were native born San Franciscians (Francisc-ites? Francos? LOL...I'm not sure how to say this.) Just because an announcement said they were China-based does not preclude the fact that they may have all been Korean. Koreans based out of China. You don't necessarily have to live in your base and you certainly don't have to be a native-born citizen of wherever you are based out of.

@Lucky, love your blog. Truly do - this is nit-picky, and I'm not being a hater - but I think you over-use the word "stunning" in your trip reviews. It feels like 80% of your reviews have something that is described as "stunning."

To me, something that's "stunning" is truly top notch, cream of the crop - and the word should be reserved for the few times when you've experienced something where that's actually the case. However, by using it so frequently, it loses it's meaning - nothing is stunning if everything is described as stunning.

Just my two cents, I've been meaning to say this for a while - again, not a big deal, but wanted to share, for what it's worth (admittedly not much!).

Great review otherwise, thanks for the great content as always!

My partner and I traveled ATL-ICN (enroute to SIN) in Korean Air Prestige Class in December. They served the second meal between 5 and 6 hours before we landed; they wouldn't give you more than one bottle of water on a 15 hour flight, and the service was quite robotic. The seat was awesome as you reported. After a month of touring 4 counties in Southeast Asia, we came home on Delta in Delta One. We liked that experience much better (even if the seat wasn't quite as good).

@Lucky - That's fair. Didn't realize the ones you showed were the only ones. Thanks for the clarification.

CX has also been known to serve pre-arrival meals mid-way through the flight. I have had this happen on several occasions when flying from/to HKG to/from SYD, JFK, and ORD. On a couple occasions I asked the purser why they did this and they communicated that people did not want to wait long periods between meals. However, CX has great mini meals in business and first that can be ordered throughout the flight, and this logic certainly does not hold for their HKG-SYD route where I was served 4 hours after the departure meal.
Not sure if this is a select Asian carrier trend, but it has resulted in me taking a subpar UA business class just to ensure I can get a full night's (flight's) sleep.

I feel like Korean airlines in general have these really annoying quirks that make you scratch your head. Good service, questionable hard products, and bibimbap bibimbap bibimbap. Every damn flight. Every damn class.

And how can ICN call itself no. 1 if it has 30+ minute lines for immigration? Don't even get me started on their security lines. Yuck. I'd rather fly out of Gimpo, but the lines there suck too.

I'm sorry. I used to live in Singapore.

betterbub, lots of US airports have 30 minute immigration lines. It's sometimes an hour at SFO if you have the misfortune to arrive just after a couple of Asian widebodies

I flew Korean Air's 747-8 from Seoul to JFK in Business Class back in Jan, and was very impressed by the experience overall. Following your advice in earlier posts, I reserved a window seat on the upper deck, and it was its own private little cocoon with loads of storage space. (I even reserved seat 18J which Seat Guru says has "slightly extra legroom due to the exit", which it doesn't, given the fixed space of the seat "pod".) The bathrooms on the upper deck are telephone booth small, making changing into pj's a bit of a challenge. My only point of note is that, while he upper deck does feel more exclusive and private, it is not as airy and spacious as the lower deck. With the single aisle, the upper deck feels more closed in that being in a double aisle part of the plane. If you prefer a more open, spacious, airy cabin, stick to the main deck which is wider and seems to have higher ceilings. (Not that the upper deck was in any way unpleasant!). Thanks for posting the review!

Lucky,

I'm about to book award travel to Korea using chase ultimate rewards points (I live in San Francisco, but don't mind repositioning). Between Korean Air and Asiana and first and business class, what order should I try to get a seat? Korean 1st, asiana 1st, korean business, and then asiana business?

This was a stunning review.

Out of curiosity, do you ever read books on planes? And if so, do you read paper books or use an eReader instead? I'm in the market for a new one and have been shopping around, so was curious! I've seen the piece on eReaders on OMAAT, but noticed that your preference wasn't listed.

Lucky, I will also be staying at grand Hyatt incheon in near future. Can you do a quick write up on that hotel?

"I worked during most of lunch"

I assume you mean to say you worked after lunch? If not, kudos to be able to balance your laptop and the plates during the meal 😉

"The only thing they had were freshly baked cookie"

Did they run out of ramen noodles? They're listed on the menu...

What oddly timed meal service.

@Martin

I know lots of airports tend to have lines but ICN kisses its own ass by telling everybody "we're globally number 1, 6 years in a row!" which is absurd, unrealistic, and stupid. Last time I went through SFO they weren't nearly so pretentious with themselves.

OMG! Nuts served in a packet? In J? I can see why the lady KA exec. went troppo!

Wow. That's crowded when you consider Delta has 1x2x1 in the lower deck of the 747 and 1x1 in the upper deck of business-class on the 747. I believe Virgin Atlantic is 1x2x1 on the lower deck.

Thank you Ben, for yet another detailed review. Luv the passion you have towards the flights and airlines, as always.

She meant 'Chinese speaking' staff on board.

I just flew Korean's first class product yesterday HAN-ICN-LAX. This was my second time in F on KE and certainly agree with most of your review. The movie selection is not just limited, but unless the movie is new (e.g. La La Land), it will come with Korean subtitles that cannot be turned off. (Only the brand new movies seem to provide a prompt to turn on/off subtitles, despite selecting English as your preferred language). You definitely need to bring your own entertainment on this flight.

Also agree with some comments about water. Even in F, you just get these tiny glasses of water, which aren't really proactively refilled. They finally gave me one bottle mid-flight, but it was small and never replaced. I ended up just asking them to keep refilling my tiny glass. Next time I'll bring my own water.

Service is generally pleasant but some FAs don't have a solid grasp on English. I realize I'm flying a Korean airline but would have expected the crew to be more consistently able to communicate in English, especially in F.

Having recently flown the Japan Airlines 787-9 in a business class window seat, I agree that these seats are a terrific business class hard product.

I've had the bibimbap in coach and business class on the Korean Air A380. The meals are almost identical. Bibimbap is bibimbap!

Hi,
Booking flight soon on delta miles from DPS to SFO...should I fly 747 with Korean or Delta One? Thanks for any comments!

Hi Lucky, love your blog!

Re the China crew comment - I understand a lot of Chinese people travelling to the US would transit through Seoul. KE must have recognised this pattern and assigned their crew accordingly to accommodate the passenger demographics (I think China-based crew just means Chinese speaking crew). To be honest I'm surprised they haven't assigned more than one Chinese speaking crew member...!

Similar experience HNL-ICN, but the second meal was 2 hours out of ICN (shorter flight overall).

My flight:
- temperature comfortable to a little cool (ok with me)
- ASKED for 3 water bottles when they brought them around (having heard about the "shortfall" in this area) and they happily obliged
- didn't take my champagne glass until after the first meal service done..... and did a pretty good job of keeping it topped off! (was VERY pleasantly surprised as it's a champagne that I really enjoy)

I flew on March 30-th from SFO to ICN and choose seat 16A on Upper deck of 744-8 and agree that a window seat is great choice. Service and food was excellent same as movie selection.
I felt like I was in heaven.
Thank you Korean Air for such great aircraft and the service

I'm flying KL 747-8 in the upper deck soon. Can a 22-inch rollaboard be accommodated in the overhead bins, or are they too small, as in most other 747 upper decks? Is there a closet at the back that can accommodate rollaboards, as BA used to do?

Lucky,
May i know, if you redeem Korean Skypass award flight with Ford separately or by only using your name? Sorry, i never travel with Korean Air before.

Thank you

Am amazed that Korean serves packaged peanuts. I have always gotten a bowl of mixed nuts (no peanuts) on every business class flight I've flown. Such a little thing, but can totally affect your overall impression of the flight. So easy to fix! Not having help yourself snacks is very odd also.

Great review. I also love this seat, but am baffled by Korean Air's instance on turning the cabin lights all the way up and forcing passengers to eat long before arrival. I have never experienced this on a few other airlines on flights to/from Asia. It's really obnoxious even as the FAs smile while doing it.

Interesting comments on the water...agree here how absurdly guarded they are with hydrating passengers. A weak pairing with the lack of overhead vents (I'm only familiar with KE Apex on 777). Oh and yes and agree the bedding is about 10-15 years behind (and feels that old to the touch too).

Note regarding the lack of fold in the tray table...really no big deal as it pivots a full 90 degrees so you can get out and leave the tray out as well. Great fore/aft range of motion on it as well. Lastly on the space, I've found the lighting adjustability great as well. Only recently enjoyed the Delta One suite more.

Hi, great review, thanks. You prepped me with the water and snacks tips.

I just flew this same flight, and the second meal was served at a normal 2.5 hours before landing. maybe they read this page and changed their ways? 😉

Overall, a great flight. You're right, the seat is amazing. I was in 18J at the window on the second deck. Not the widest seat, but man it's a lot of room. Looking forward to my flight home.

Do you know if they have installed the Apex Suite for Prestige (Business) Class on all 777-300s that fly SFO-Seoul? I see there are 2 different versions but can’t tell if both aircraft types have them or not. Was looking to book a few seats but don’t want to be stuck with no direct isle access. Thanks.