Review: Korean Air Business Class Airbus A321neo (ICN-CTS)

With more and more carriers integrating Bluetooth pairing with their IFE systems, would it be a good idea for headphones to be on request only? I think it'd be a win for both the carrier and passenger as more and more people are connected to their devices and are using headphones while the carrier gets to save money. And the headphones they usually offer are nothing special anyway. (At least in Business Class)

You say that you would choose many other Asian carriers, yet often times KE/OZ are the only full service options in the Japan to Korea market (a very critical market, flights like TYO/KIX to SEL rank in the top 10 busiest traffic markets).

Japanese carriers often just codeshare w/ KE and OZ and don’t fly much of their metal to Korea, which leaves just these two options (soon to be one with the merger). You really don’t have much choice other than KE. You wouldn’t be able to fly ANA or JAL on ICN-CTS without connecting and entering the country.

@ yoloswag420 -- My comment wasn't specific to this one route, but rather to routes where there are options, like flying from ICN to HKG, TPE, SIN, BKK, etc.

That’s understandable, but the market itself matters for comparison purposes. That’s like saying I want to fly CLT to DFW on Singapore Airlines, or Eurobusiness flights should be as good as QR, it’s simply not an option.

For your various long haul flight reviews, it’s totally fair to make broader comparisons since there are many ways to travel there via connecting with many different carriers. But Japan/Korea market is such a critical point to point market, I’m not sure drawing parallels to other carriers is fair.

I personally view this as completely different from other intra-Asia markets like the ones you refer to, where I think it would be practical to discuss other carriers as those would be real options. It’s actually quite notable how skewed the market is between Japan and Korea, when you compare it to TPE/NRT, another high volume market, which has 5 full service carriers competing.

Hello, Matthew, just saying that the Starlux aircraft when you arrived at Sapporo airport was actually an A330NEO, not an A321NEO. But anyways, take care!

@ Mahmoud -- The caption was intended to mean that the picture was taken from an A321neo, and not that it was of an A321neo. Sorry for any confusion.

I think you are grasping for straws and care way too much about this minor detail.

Great job Ben!

@ yoloswag420 -- I hear where you're coming from, and you're right, Japan to Korea is a unique market. I'd agree if service were materially different depending on the route, but that's not the case. For example, ICN-TPE and ICN-CTS are roughly the same distance, and have identical menus.

So surely we could agree that's closer to being a fair comparison vs. comparing AA between DFW and CLT to QR J or intra-Europe J, no?

A name-changing intellectual would take Copa 737 and Air India's ex-Vistara A321neos over this.
He truely believes in power of "visualising", that he wouldn't be mad if he paid a lot of cash and had a bad experience, because he'll just "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)".

I mean, at least when it's the carriers he like, such JAL, ANA, EVA, Starlux, Singapore Airlines, Air India, etc.
But never on Korean, Asiana, Cathay Pacific and more.

Notice the text used for the ‘Time to Destination’ and ‘Distance Travelled’ at the bottom? They’re written in a new font, which exactly matches the new Korean Air logo trademark that was briefly revealed in January 2022. This is a sure indicator that this is KE’s new custom font, and that a rebrand after the Asiana merger will take place in only a matter of time. Hope the iconic sky blue is retained!

Hey Mahmoud, I understand you might have had a brief slip-up, and please pardon me if I sound impolite. Just letting you know that this is Ben’s blog, OMAAT, and you might have confused it with Matthew’s Live and Let’s Fly. Cheers!

You call that ancient and hopes the airline to keep that?

What doesn't change in you, you already changed name, and now even a stance.
Maybe your hypocritic nature doesn't?

KE's first class policy these days seems to be standby only, they don't give awards a confirmed confirmation. You'll probably have to apply for standby if you want it, and I can't guarantee the probability of it being approved.

In general, if you have KE metal status, you have a little better chance, but I always question whether it's worth it.

Lucky,

How come you didn't try the pre-order option for the meals on this flight and the last one, just to see what (if anything) else was available for ordering?

How were you "pointed left into business class" if you boarded through door 1L?

@ben you should spend time in the cities you visit 😉 I love Japan and Hokkaido is supposed to be very nice.

I always find it amusing that they say East Sea rather than its internationally recognised name, sea of Japan.

@Ben I noticed that Korean offers hot chocolate, something I almost never see on menus (so much so that I usually carry my own packets when I fly). Do you know of other airlines that offer coca in flight?

As someone about to fly ICN-TPE in business in the next couple of months, this review was appreciated but also a little.... disappointing (with regards to the airline, not you Lucky!).

The food and drink offerings look quite pathetic. I've already looked at the menu for my flight- the same two options, mushroom bulgogi or seafood pasta, neither of which I'm keen on. They talk about being able to book other meals in advance, but whenever I've checked the app it only seems to offer an option to choose categories of food (low sodium/religious meals etc) rather than actually giving you extra menu choices.

While it's a short flight, I was quite looking forward to it - not so much now! The lounge seems very underwhelming, too.

Oh well.

They can't even if they wanted to.
Koreans would dive straight into boycott.

To be fair, that was originally called Sea of Korea until the colonial times.
Understandable as to why they don't want to call that Sea of Japan. But they should get things together at this point.
Should be fine as long as one don't call Dokdo as Takeshima. THAT would be a problem then.

TPE is comparable to CTS, but the sector lengths to the other destinations you mentioned are much longer. If nothing else, the catering might well be more interesting and/or substantial.

As a Korean-American, it has been interesting reading all of the recent reviews of KE and ICN. I chuckle at some of the criticisms as I think several of them are things that I believe many Koreans would like and Americans would hate. So the criticisms make some sense from that perspective, and are not necessarily wrong either.

A suggestion on just one of those: if you are a westerner flying KE, especially in biz class, speak up about what service you might need, they'll bend over backwards to assist.