While I've flown Asiana's first class on this route, this was my first time flying their longhaul business class. I was curious to see how the product stacked up, both compared to Asiana's first class, and also compared to Korean Air's business class, which I reviewed on a transpacific flight earlier this year. I boarded…
Continue reading: Review: Asiana Business Class A380 Los Angeles To Seoul
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I know that a lot of asian carriers tend to keep the cabin warm--have you ever asked them to cool it down a little? If so, what kind of response do you get?
We're taking that flight this Saturday - so great timing. From your review, I'd say KAL business is definitely more interesting, not least for the fun bar at the front of the upper deck.
Not an impressive cabin. It reminds me of the beige PC cases from the 90s. Great review though, Lucky. I admire how thorough you are at including all the details of a fairly bland business class product.
The ramyun picture is so gorgeous, it made me crave it again. Of course I ate Shin Ramyun past 5 days straight...
For each review you should stay including the # of miles or money you paid for the ticket. We see that you have left traveling in first as miles abs avaliable are harder to get in F.
Why do north Asian airlines keep their cabins uncomfortably hot? Do Asians prefer it this way?
Lucky, I've been reading your reviews for ages, and for the LIFE of me, I cannot understand your obsession with reverse herringbone.
I don't care for it at all. Why must I sit sideways so that some revenue manager can get his cabin density award bonus for the year?
I much prefer these staggered layouts.
But either way, it's a matter of preference, and I don't think you should penalize Asiana or other carriers for not offering YOUR (or my) preference in that regard.
Ditto the cabin finishes; while they're bland, they're also not gaudy and obnoxious (looking at you, Emirates).
That said, I had a similar experience on this route this spring. GREAT crew, decent but not fantastic food, and acceptable IFE. I was lucky, and had a cooler cabin, though! That seems to be a bit of a roulette wheel.
just flew JFK-ICN on A380 business class(using UA miles), echo the comments above, the cabin was way too hot, but found the same to be true on JAL return. Had a true window seat and found it comfortable, food and service was very good. Inflight entertainment was a bit lacking, haven't been on a flight that didn't have the Big Bang Theory in years.
@debit, how long have you been reading this blog again (or are you a fake debit)?
Lucky always includes that info in the first post of the series. Let me help you:
Asiana had business class award availability for the date I wanted to travel, so I booked the following for 75,000 LifeMiles (which I purchased for 1.375 cents each):
10/25 OZ201 Los Angeles to Incheon departing 12:10PM arriving 5:35PM (+1 day)
10/26 OZ323 Incheon to Chengdu departing 8:00PM arriving 11:00PM
This reminds me of the Curb Your Enthusiasm skit where Leon explains the difference in sleeping temperatures between blacks and whites.
Just did the A380 Asiana Frankfurt to Seoul 7 hour layover then Seoul to Sydney. Great staff but the business layout is terrible. Very noisy. Even 5 rows from the galley the cleaning and stacking of glasses and crockery kept waking me up which they do in the aisle and not the galley proper. I use the 787 a lot and going back to the very dated A380 is telling: air is very dry, engines too noisy and dumb cabin lockers above are too low and intrude into the business aisle.
@Ben, from the many Koreans I know, including my fiancée - yes, Koreans like warmer indoor locations. Think 23-24C [73-75F] even in winter and more during the summer. The last time I attended an conference at the Coex convention center, the convention center temperature was set around 25, whereas US convention centers always seem to be set at 18-20 (or less).
@Legend.
It's Lucky's review. The only way he can do it is by stating what he did and did not like. Given how detailed the reviews are, most readers would have ample information to decide whether that particular statement does or doesn't apply to them.
Personally, I kinda like the emirates cabin with its blingy, tacky decor. Puts me in a good holiday mood as soon as i board.
@tom,
He shold just put it in flight details table instead of making us find it.
I don't read the review, just look at the pictures, read the smallish comments and leave. Who cares about the review. I am not going to choose this airline or not choose it based on the review. I will read the review after I book something to find out what I have gotten.
Flown this at least 3 times as this is ubiquitous award on the UA search engine from LAX to SE Asia. For a man who's 6'2" and 240 lbs, I found the Asiana A-380 business-class seats to be cramped and too small for me. I much prefer JL's 787 business class seats. But it was either this or the 12 grueling hours layover at KIX. We are flying ICN-LAX in January on these seats and I'm not looking forward to it. The wife and kids don't seem mind the seats ... but I will enjoy their 20 year old Tawny Port!
Thanks for the review! 🙂
Nice writeup. I flew the opposite routing (ICN-LAX) 11/6 and found it very warm un the cabin. I have to say the hard product was very hard indeed (pun intended). I wound up taking a couple extra blankets and pillows pillaged from empty biz seats to pad the bed. Got about 5hrs sleep in though which was nice.
Why some seats have just a waist seat belt and others also includes a shoulder harness? What is the rationale behind this?
I echo the various comments about the temperatures in the cabin. It is ungodly hot. This is not a problem until you try to sleep, and if you're used to a cooler environment, it becomes almost impossible. I've flown Asiana a number of long hauls in first, and it's just as bad in first. At my request, they did agree to lower the temperature, but I'm not sure if going from 79 degrees to 76 was much of a help, and I had my own thermometer so I knew the exact temperature!
The "Ssambap" meal is my favorite part of the flight, which they serve in both first and business, and I would recommend it to anyone.
*insert Lucky's obligatory comment about Asiana's color scheme*
at least it wasn't vomit inducing this time!
"I don’t care for it at all. Why must I sit sideways so that some revenue manager can get his cabin density award bonus for the year?"
Legend,
It's more a matter of revenue for the airline, and the corresponding prices and schedule. You want space around you but that costs the airline money, which means higher fares. Price rarely comes into these reviews but, if it did, you'd often find that the "inferior" layout has lower prices.
8-across for 2K or 4-across for 4K? Not many people would choose the latter but that is what it comes down to.
Asiana is one of the reasons I don't trust Skytrax ratings. Sure the airline is fine and they do have some excellent crew. But particularly given that they still have angled seats in J on many long-haul planes, I don't think anybody here would argue they are overall a superior airline to, say, JAL, which is rated lower (4 stars) by Skytrax.
It's interesting that you had a beverage service with canapes before the meal.
In March I flew Asiana BKK-ICN-JFK-ICN-BKK in J and on *none* of the flights was there a pre-meal beverage. Shortly after take-off tablecloths were laid and we went directly into the meal starting with table set-up, appetizer and bread. I thought it was odd, especially on such a long-haul flights like ICN-JFK and JFK-ICN, to not have a separate beverage service. On the midnight departure of a 5-hour BKK-ICN flight, yes, I can see speeding up things so one can sleep earlier, but not on a 14.5-hour flight with a mid-day departure. (I hate to sound like the macadamia nut wacko on KE but skipping a scheduled beverage service would be a pretty serious infraction, no?)
When taking my meal order they asked what I would like to drink, and at the time I thought that was for a pre-meal beverage service, but no, that drink was delivered shortly after table-setup, appetizer and bread.
Which is the norm for a long-haul OZ flight? A beverage/canape service before the meal or a "combined service?"
In the Good News category, as a solo traveler I quite enjoyed the A380 Business Class window seat with maximum privacy.
My partner and I flew Asiana 777 business class from SYD-ICN-HNL this month. The first leg the cabin temp was perfect, second leg it was so hot it made sleep difficult. Flight attendants were excellent, food was good, not great. I actually liked the Smartium business class seat better than Hawaiian's new business/first class seat. Port was excellent.
@Carlos If the seat faces straight forward, the shoulder belt is not required I believe. If it's at an angle, it might be (I've seen some airlines just use a lap belt with an airbag in it).
I'm surprised it's so long (13h25m) from the west coast to Seoul, when it's 14h25m from Washington, DC to Seoul or 13h45m from Toronto to Seoul. Just a bit more even though departure is from the east coast. I guess those flights take the polar route.
I love adjectives as much as the next guy; but, can something really be "horrifyingly" bland?
Thank You for the good photos, Asiana has a good presentation on their foods yet, thoe 'honeymoon' sets are just to close (as you have indicated); I love your reports; was the after take-off, nicely presented Laurent Perrie champage served chilled?
How do you find the cabin temperture on Asiana? Some airlines such as Singapore are too warm for me but, Thai usually maintains a nicely chilled cabin
Happy and safe travels
Those honeymoon seats are great for travelling 1 adult - 1 child.
I flew this route with my 11 year old. It's one of the few configurations that really works well with kids. Just a different perspective. . .
When it comes to Asiana's long-haul business amenity kit, I have quite a bit to say. They used to have quite nice amenity kit, but that's been downgraded to what you got... It's mostly attributable to the fact that Asiana airlines' parent company, Kumho Asiana Group, is going through some tough financial difficulties as I speak. For a brief period of time, they didn't even give out amenity kits on inbound flights to Seoul (thus only the passengers on outbound flight from Seoul got amenity kits).
Asiana's still got quite nice business class product. But their biggest issue is inconsistency with hard product. Some 777s still have mid 2000s style angled flat seats...
I live in Seoul (6 years and counting) and can confirm the standard setting is always 26C (78F) for summer time and public places like department stores and shops (with heavy government enforcement), so presumably this is what the airplane is set to.
And yes, I’m always hot here. Just how it is haha.
I have 2 tickets for my honeymoon in Business class from NYC-ICN-Sydney (NYC-ICN on 777-200LR, ICN-Sydney on the A380). I booked using United miles. Is there a way to upgrade to first class (on one or either leg) and if yes is it worth it?
@worldtraveller73 agreed, my kids love the OZ A-380 but it doesn't work for me but that's the bottom line: it's all about showing them the world and creating genuine happy memories 🙂 Here are more photos of this plane/airline: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kalboz/albums/72157687365263832
Too many comments to make this very long...I flew ICN-LAX in the front cabin business just a few weeks before this...
PROs:
- Flight attendants very pleasant and professional; however, (maybe because my flight is technically overnight) the flight left in the early afternoon, there was no attentiveness during the non-meal service. Lucky reports they checked on him often, I was never checked on, and with my IFE controls not working, I had to actually get up to ask for a drink.
- Food; I'm pretty picky about food and I'm not fancy so business class food often doesn't appeal. I found the food to be very good. I had some kind of chicken that was quite good, the appetizer was a "salad" that consisted mostly of meat, kinda made me laugh. Then the breakfast options included an omelette but being as though I hadn't slept (more later) I opted for...Lasagna. For some reason they had meat lasagna on the breakfast menu, and maybe more surprisingly it was actually pretty good.
CONs
- IFE; the IFE was hot garbage. For a 10 hour flight they had what seemed like 15 "newish" movies (Lucky reported 20, I'd say it was around that I guess) ...that's it. I even explored the Korean/Japanese/Chinese options and they each only had 4-5. There was no giant section of classics or anything. The TV shows were random at best and didn't have many episodes of anything (5 of Hawaii 5-0 is probably the high watermark) so I was really disappointed there.
- Seats; the finishings were kinda lame, though I'm not a designer so it's not a big deal. My IFE controls didn't work at all, including the FA call button, so I couldn't use that remote control whatsoever. The seat itself physically is fine, I liked it in recline mode, sleep mode is fine I was comfortable but as Lucky said the pillow isn't great.
- Heat; I found it very hot the entire flight and with no control, there's really nothing you can do. I was wearing shorts, never touched the blanket other than to toss it in the overhead.
I flew this exact same route in 2014 when the A380 was new with OZ and it looks like the food has NOT CHANGED in 3 years. You could have easily grabbed the pictures from my album and just reused them LOL.
http://seat38a.com/asiana-airlines-oz-201-lax-to-icn-smartium-business-class/
My wife and I flew ICN-LAX on 11/23 and found business class pluses to be outweighed by the high cabin temp which made for a very uncomfortable 10+ hours. FA said temp could not be lowered. OMAAT should include cabin temps in reviews. Ariana doesn’t have air vents at each seat.
Nice report, I will be on the same flight next sept. and on to hkt from there
took the same route in Asiana 3 years back in first class. was very good.
cabin temp is ok, ( same on jal) I just open the over head vent a bit, makes it plesant.
Strangely this airline rated 5 Star. Yes, the foot cubicle is quite tight, Lucky.
Good review
Just flew LAX to ICN on the A380 (and returned on the same) and I agree with other comments. Service was attentive and friendly. Good food and wine choices; really enjoyed just about everything I ate in both directions.
Seat was mostly comfortable, although like others I found the foot cube to be a little tight (not as tight as UA's business class seat though). Not a big deal for me.
The heat was unbearable. It was weird, the flight actually started out at a comfortable temp, then right after we ate the main meal the temp gradually rose until I was in a full on sweat. I actually tend to run a little cold on flights, but this was very uncomfortably hot. I think the Korean clients prefer it this way (some of them were covered with blankets!). I've read articles on how they like to keep their homes very warm.
What's interesting is that I continued on with OZ to Hanoi on an older A330 and the temp was actually quite comfortable the whole trip (same on the return from SIN to ICN). Maybe just an issue on the A380?
Anyway, the service was great, food was good, seat was nice, but the climate was so uncomfortable I wouldn't book this flight again.
ill be flying from ICN to LAX and there is award availability for first and biz class on the a380. im all about having great flight experiences, but both products look unimpressive. do you guys think its worth springing for the first class or is business just fine for asiana?
ill be flying from ICN to LAX and there is award availability for first and biz class on the a380. im all about having great flight experiences, but both products look unimpressive. do you guys think its worth springing for the first class or is business just fine for asiana? curious to your thoughts...
I flew the A380 Asiana business class from LAX to ICN. I think Asiana has the best service by far of the overseas business class travel I've done. Air China is the worst, American is good, but Asiana is fantastic. I'll find out about United and Swiss Air later this year. I almost felt uncomfortable with how nice the flight attendants were to me. Yes, the decor may be a little dated, but the seats were comfortable both reclined and upright. The one thing I hated about the flight was the lack of wifi. I was hoping to get some work done, but could not. So, into my pajamas and off to bed!
Wow, I am a Northeastern Asian and can attest that what you guys find really hot is actually really cold for me (I usually bring fall/winter clothes on flights and ask for extra blankets). Same in dept stores, I always bring a cardigan in the summer. I always wondered why they keep the temp so low during the summer (and in planes) and this solves my mystery!
Asiana business class has a better lay flat bed and privacy. Korean, if you have a window, you have to step over the next person. It’s 2/2/2 and Asiana is 1/2/1. Much better.
The kit on Korean didn’t have ear plugs or socks. Really?
I'm can't wait to fly this business class once pandemic is over. I have miles saved up with Asiana to upgrade with. it will likely be on their new a350 since I prefer taking the night departure flight from lax.