Korean Air Plans New First Class, Realizes It's Not Competitive

Whatever people’s opinion on the livery, it’s nice to see a Northeast Asian airline other than Cathay Pacific invest in its branding and identity. It’s always been as though CX has been the only airline from Northeast Asia which paid any attention at all to advertising and branding. So I’m glad to see KE take this aspect of its corporate identity seriously, especially when it isn’t as universally positively received as BR, JX, NH or JL. It’s a long uphill journey, much like AI — though AI has an ever bigger disadvantage of a terrible reputation — but it’s great to see KE starting to work on its corporate image.

Hopefully they'll also serve some other options than just a beef rice bowl.

Ben, I wrote this before, but I'm asking again to hear from you.

I've read your old(10+ years ago) reviews of Korean Air and they were mostly positive, which is very different from your recent reviews.
I think their first class hard product is still ok. The suites on 747-8i and retrofitted 77W are large and private(with doors), and the old ones on A380 are pretty much the same as JAL 777 first class. It would be the soft product rather than the hard product that Korean Air lags behind.

Have the service of them deteriorate? Did they use to be proactive but chang to be reactive at some point?
Or the competitors have changed?

I know they've cut cost in a lot of their soft product(meal service, inflight bar in A380, etc.), but I guess the service of the FAs and staffs would be mostly the same. Have they really changed?

Korean Air still think they are premium airlines and charge premium price while serving bibimbap and instant ramen noodles.

Korean Air still think they are premium airlines and charge premium price while serving bibimbap and instant ramen noodles in Business Class.

If you can have a multi-course menu in a restaurant in Koreatown in LA or New York, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to replicate something onboard. They could easily partner with some restaurants and chefs.

CX and Hong Kong, IMO, would be more East than Northeast. The same could be said with BR and JX. While Hong Kong is politically part of China, which is a Northeast Asian country, Hong Kong is geographically more East than Northeast.

The biggest peeve for me is their refusal to update their A330/777 seating. Whereas other Asian carriers now all have 1-2-1 reverse herringbone or staggered seats, KE still uses outdated minipod-style seats on some longhaul(including their "flagship" A380). On ANA J, even if you don't fly on the 77W with "the Room", the older staggered 77W/787 seat is still perfectly serviceable. Same for JL/BR/CI/SQ/CX on 7+h flights. But on KE, if you happen to fly anything but the new Prestige suites 2.0 or Apex, you find yourself with 2-3-2/2-2-2 J seats with minimal privacy, a far cry from the rest of the Asian carriers. Their lounges, both at ICN and outstations(LAX/JFK), have also seemed pretty lacklustre. All in all it seems KE just has been so focused on the OZ merger that it reduced investment in pax-ex, instead trying to rely on its halo status from 10 years ago(Skytrax, anyone?) and its admittedly excellent staff. I do hope this changes after the merger, but I wouldn't get too hopeful. FWIW, KE's hard product is still better than Asiana's very aging seats(except maybe for the A350).

Well, the 77Ws are scheduled to get a refit with the Prestige Suites 2.0. I'm not exactly sure what their plans are for the A330s, but since both KE and OZ have plenty of young A330s, they could easily have a unified product and since both use PW engines, it makes things easier from a maintenance standpoint.

The 772ERs are retired at KE and they could easily retire the 773As if they really wanted to.

As far as the lounges are concerned, they have plenty of real estate to work with both figuratively and literally with the expansion of terminal 2. They're also scheduled to open their own lounge at JFKs new terminal 1 with the ability to board directly from the lounge!

I don't knock those options, as that's their country's fan favorite food. Koreans are one of the top, if not the top consumer of instant ramen.

But they should definitely have more options beyond bibimbap and ramen. Perhaps some other Korean dishes (galbi, noodles, etc.) + banchan to elevate the experience.

KAL's first batch B77Ws are supposed to get new Prestige Suites 2 soon but will lose first class and get premium economy instead. Rumour says it will have a C40W48Y252 or similar. While it's good that their B772s are now WFU it's quite puzzling that B773s are still there.

KAL A333s are mostly old - only last six planes are less than 15 years old (delivered btwn. 2014 and 2015). Asiana's ones are slightly newer but the airline plans to return them to the lessors in upcoming years.

Asiana's long-haul seats may be dated, but is at least consistent - all A350s, A380s and 777s have 1-2-1 STELIA Solstys seats, and only A330s (usually flying within Asia) have angled seats.

@ S_LEE -- That's an excellent question. I think the short answer is that it's a little bit of everything. On balance, the competition has gotten much better, while I'd argue that Korean Air has gotten just a little worse, and hasn't evolved.

I feel like the soft product on Korean Air isn't as good as in the past, from the rubber amenity kit, to food not being quite as good as it was before, to service just not being quite as friendly (which is perhaps true at many airlines, following the pandemic). While other airlines have invested in Wi-Fi, that's still an area where Korean Air lags, for its fleet with first class. The alcohol on Korean Air isn't very impressive either.

So it's hard to point my finger at any one thing, but from start to finish, the experience is just quite underwhelming.

It's not really puzzling as they use the 773As to high capacity, low yield destinations such as Manila, Cebu, and Ho Chi Minh.

While you can replace 1 773 with 2 A330s, unfortunately Manila is slot-restricted and cargo capacity is also a factor. Once the A35Ks start coming in, I would imagine the 77Ws doing more regional flights.

The 772s were pretty much redundant with the introduction of the 787 and A350. The 773As fill a niche market with no direct replacement hence CX and NH holding on to theirs until the last minute.

Typical Skyteam behavior to launch a revolutionary, exciting, top notch first class, only for it to be a business class seat with bigger footwell and a door.

I would've thought the East Asian market would be more competitive considering that Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and to some extent Hong Kong all compete for connecting traffic. Fares are very competitive on the opposite carriers, for example SEL originating JAL fares, or TYO originating KE fares, all undercut their own nonstops.

But I suppose it boils down to cultural differences and language barriers.

A330 of Asiana fly to SIN, a big Nono when every other full service get you direct aisle

It does make sense to be honest - I've never felt Korean Air was very concerned with convincing people outside of South Korea to fly with them. And I guess it was enough for the domestic market the standard, but relatively to carriers from other countries it looks poor.

While I think there is still room to improve, it probably is fair Ben to note that there are variations of first class, and the better variation is fairly competitive (imo). The same soft product concerns are equally valid.

The weaker version is definitely outdated - but those also make up both first class photos in the piece.

It used to matter when there was a way to book award flights. But now who cares? I enjoyed J with my family back when they were transfer partners with Chase

I split East Asian airlines into Northeast (CX, BR, JX, CI, NH, JL, KE, OZ) — not counting Mainland Chinese carriers like CA, CZ, MU and HU — and Southeast (SQ. TG, MH, GA, VN, PR) in order to group together different kinds of airlines.

CX (along with MH) is in a league of its own when it comes to branding and English usage, with SQ and GA close behind, TG and JX a bit worse, and NH, JL and BR nowhere in sight. It seems KE is finally headed towards CX and SQ’s league.

It’s clear that the West far prefers the Japanese and Taiwanese airlines’ service (plus CX and SQ) to the Koreans, with the Mainland Chinese nowhere in sight. That’s the cultural perception that KE is out to change now, and I bet the KE leadership has been internally going through what it hasn’t been getting right. Ben’s effusive reviews of Starlux, SQ, JAL, EVA, etc. and not-so-complimentary reviews of KE have no doubt played a part in that.

Let’s hear you say that for Air France, which is SkyTeam’s best airline hands down. It’s perhaps the best Western airline out there, and way above KE and SkyTeam’s other Asian airlines like GA.

I think it is partly due to geography. At least from a European standpoint. Why do a 12 hour flight to ICN and then a 10 hour flight to SYD, when I can catch a 12 hour flight to SIN and then a 7 hour flight to SYD. I don’t know anyone who prefers to connect in ICN.

And that's the rub. The hard product is subjectively easy to master. There are only a few seat mfrs out there and you have lots of examples of other in-service seats to choose from off-the-shelf or to modify. That should be the easiest choice to make. But if we're differentiating soft product, KE routinely fails on every flight I've been on. I've flow F on SQ, QF, KE, CX, NH, and JL. KE suffered on hard *and* soft product on every mid-haul intra-Asia or TPAC flight I was on when compared to literally every other Asia/Pacific region carrier. They have an uphill battle to fight when it comes to improving their offering on-board, and them being light on details on soft product - the harder nut to crack - means this announcement is pretty useless. It's the "we have a concept of a plan" of improvement announcements.

Thanks for the answer, Lucky!
The details of their soft product upgrade plan have just been released. I think it'll be worth an article.
https://youtu.be/kB2j-EOKKYU?si=Dwum838mHlcuwDwP
https://youtu.be/3LNugR4I1_k?si=gWo9C2kWG5BdXvsN

They're finally offering mattress in business class! And the food options are expanding as well. I hope the FAs service changes, too.

As for wi-fi, they're installing it on their existing 787s and 777s, but there's no plan to do it on 747s, A380s and A330s since they'll retire in a few years. I know it's disappointing because their 7474s and A380s are put on their signature routes such as LAX and JFK..

Ben was extremely critical of KE's old F hard product recently while he didn't do the same for JL's old F in another recent post, but they're both extremely similar products. He's just really harsh on KE's hard product for some reason.

There was an international incident about how some nuts were served that was the direct cause of the decline.

Connections are primarily intra-Asia. Years ago from the end of the Cold War until the mid-late 2000s and 77Ws taking over, Korean Air and Seoul was the alternative to JAL and Northwest in Narita for connections to Asia. ANA was a much smaller airline then and with CI in Taipei, you had another tech stop in Anchorage.

Now you're spoiled for choice with endless options!

Haha. I’ll believe it when I see it. The new livery looks childish and uninspiring.

Lack of WiFi is unforgivable.

When did you lift fly Korean first class? Is it time for another review of them?

And you can be sure that the award miles required for this new upgraded product will be ridiculously high, or even availability non-existent as Korean Air have done previously. This is an airline that needed to wake up a long time ago.

'East Asia' to my understanding isn't an inclusive term covering all of Asia that isn't a West Asia but (generally) referring to far Eastern Asia