During my quick trip to Japan & Korea, I had the chance to check out the Korean Air Prestige Lounge at Seoul Incheon Airport (ICN), prior to my Korean Air A321neo business class flight. Prestige Class is how Korean Air markets its business class, so this is the carrier’s business class lounge at its biggest…
Continue reading: Review: Korean Air Prestige Business Lounge Seoul Incheon Airport (ICN)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I don't think removing the cup instant noodles and replacing them with a 'real' noodle bar will go over well with many of the Korean clientele. I personally know a bunch of people who love that stuff in lounges and midflight
(That being said as a Korean I agree with you Lucky)
In general, Korean Air with ICN Terminal 2 made some really questionable decisions that confirm its position as "second tier" when they really should have gone all out with this new terminal. Despite the new facilities ICN doesn't have that cool factor it once had maybe 20 years ago and I find that there are airports in the US I like using more than ICN
Have to second the previous comment. I would personally like a noodle bar but Koreans view the instant noodles with a bit more regard than others.
Let's face it, everything about ICN is one big "meh". It's a very functional airport. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’d say this is the worst lounge I’ve been to and if I don’t want to be too harsh it will come second after the air Serbia lounge in Belgrade.
I usually just stop by, grab a bite and go walk around or to the gate area. It’s always crowded, food isn’t good, seating isn’t comfortable nor private and bathrooms outside are better.
Agree with Lucky - these lounges are a very good reason to avoid arriving early or flying Skyteam out of ICN.
Not gonna lie, kinda shocked with the three-star rating. Breakfast spread seems better than other meals, but man the afternoon/evening spreads are borderline not edible in my experience. Half the dishes are some sort of mass produced, re-heated seafood dish (not happening!).
Also I laugh every time I grab 6 of the little shot glasses of water-in-a-plastic-"cup" at a time... why they don't have water on tap is beyond me.
As someone else said, everything about ICN is very meh... why it is so highly regarded is a mystery to me. I don't even think reliability is all that good.
Absolutely awful crap. Sky Team simply lays an egg in Asia and this lounge is the perfect metaphor
I wonder how the Asiana lounge compares to this one. I imagine it’s much better.
Love all the recent Skyteam coverage to further deepen my disappointment about SAS’ move to skyteam
Equally not impressive, but at least there is an awesome Singapore Airlines lounge next door to compensate
The furnishings look identical to the ones found in their lounge at LAX, which is also the worst one in the airport. Until Air France opened its own, they refused to send their customers there. It’s also quite a colourful country therefore it’s bizarre why it’s not reflected in their lounges including some artwork. It wouldn’t take much.
I agree it is not as fancy as some other business class lounges in the region, but I think some of the complaints here are more against things that are Korean rather than Korean Air. Asiana has the same 2 types of packaged ramen for a reason. You wanted a noodle bar--like one that serves HK style fish ball soup? Or pho? Phad thai? And Jeju is supposed to have some of the purest water in Korea.
Pretty sure Lucky wasn't complaining about the water per se, but the packaging. There are actual bottled water companies in Korea that use water from Jeju but Korean Air insists on using these weird plastic containers that have people peel their water containers and sip from it like it's a campsite.
ICN is not designed for any sort of "luxury travel." It's rather catered for economy class passengers without lounge access or any priority service.
Not many airports offer free shower and free transfer lounge(with comfortable lounge chairs only) for transit passengers. You can use them even if you fly an LCC.
This airport is bad for luxury travelers, but it's quite nice for budget travelers(especially for transit), and this is why it's highly regarded.
I'm sure that it boils down to some manager/executive in charge of lounges at KE simply not having any great sense of taste, or the budget to execute on it.
ICN is straight up not a well designed airport regardless of how much money you spend on travel. Security/immigration takes way, way too much time. The distance between immigration and your gate can be extremely long. Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 might as well be separate airports entirely. I haven't had to park at Terminal 2 but Terminal 1 parking is a disaster, with cars parking on sidewalks and curbs because there aren't enough spots. I'm pretty sure there is no way to drive to ICN from Seoul without paying tolls.
My goodness...what a depressing sea of beige and grey lumpen furniture and cheap floor tiles. Not a sign of 'high-end' feel, personality or local flair anywhere. We've all seen hospital waiting rooms similar to this, sans buffet. Then again, Incheon as a whole always has been much over-rated.
As someone mentioned, does sort of feel like a hospital. Lounge is horrific for a main hub, but at least they have a nice selection of booze. I can't say the same for the MH lounge in KUL (5 choices total of bottom-shelf liquor for a flagship lounge). I would love to see you review that again as my oh my, has it changed?
I have been to both lounges many times. I wish the author would have taken photos with people in them. Arriving from USA to ICN is typically after a very long flight. These lounges are packed to the max, the temperature is too high, too warm. The food is OK but the experience is not very good. Food is OK but the atmosphere reminds of something not quite Prestigious…. It is a place to kill some time between the flights ….no other options
I think this is like the same situations as SkyClubs in ATL; No real competition in T2 (3 other PP lounges), therefore no real motivation to step it up. I don't know if they have room to put a SkyClub in there.
The food is good, though.
In an interesting contrast with this blog's recent comments on DL, this lounge isn't being compared to the offerings of the airline's rivals in Korea (Asiana, T Way), but rather to airlines within an entire continent stretching as far as SAW in Istanbul. The implicit assertion that people wanting to travel between e.g. Muscat and Delhi won't choose KE because of their underwhelming lounge seems 100% legit.
It's pretty odd how the Japan/Korea/Taiwan carriers all have very weak lounges, especially when compared to how much better their inflight service is.
ICN/GMP have no good lounges. ANA's Suite lounge and JAL's First Class lounges are good, but they feel like good business class lounges rather than actual first class lounges, which is what they are supposed to be.
In TPE, EVA's only good lounge is for their Diamond members (not accessible for first class or Star Alliance Gold). China Airlines has one nicer-ish lounge, but not what I would call amazing. Starlux's new T2 lounge is solid, but seemingly a bit crowded even.
The designer of this lounge must have also led the design of the SkyTeam lounge at DXB. *yawns*
Just an awful business-class lounge, especially in Asia. Between China Eastern and Korean, Delta sure has great Asian partners.
Also I wonder what'll happen to ANA/EVA in this Japan/Korea/Taiwan aviation triangle with the Asiana merger.
Taipei/Seoul/Tokyo are among some of the busiest international routes in the world. And I Notice that Japanese carriers are very reluctant to fly their own metal to Taipei and Seoul. KE is aligned with JAL and CI. However, ANA heavily relies on Asiana codeshare, which will go away. Will ANA have to send more of its metal over to Seoul? Will BR pump up SEL frequencies? Or will KE extend codeshare to them as well?
Waiting for the name changer to tell us how bad Korean lounges are and how good Japanese or Indian lounges are.
And finally rubbing it in to Ben by telling him to "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)"
Korean and Asians has consistently undercut prices especially in discounted economy from americas to asia and vice versa. You get bottom of the barrel travelers going through ICN versus Tokyo or Taipei or hongkong.
As a result I’m not surprised by the state of its lounges too. Looks to be very heavily used.
The alcohol in the KUL satellite does leave something to be desired but their food is excellent. If they could just get their spirits selection in order, it would be a top lounge globally.
What is most striking is the total lack of design ethic in respect of the furniture *layout*. In almost every pic, each chair / seat seems to be arranged 'cinema-style', where seats face the back of the person in front.
How inspiring? Not. There seems to be no area where multiple people travelling together can sit and chat. What do business travellers or families of three or four do? Perhaps, this design is purposeful, to get people in and out of the lounge as fast as possible? However, there is nothing that encourages inter-personal interaction. Looks almost like an airline cabin, where your only interaction is with the serving staff ie: cafeteria style. Sterile and boring, in my view. Contrast this layout with the recently-opened new Oneworld lounge. Chalk and cheese.
Yeah, my 2 cents (and i know I'm certainly not unique even among my ATL friend group), but this is one among many of the major, largely quality/service reasons that I eventually had no choice but to throw in the towel on flying Delta.
I'm not sure about Taiwan, but SEL-TYO market is totally taken over by Korean LCCs such as Jeju Air, T'Way Air, Jin Air, etc.
GMP-HND is the only route that FSCs thrive thanks to slot restriction, however, KE will take OZ slots, so I don't think ANA will be able to expand in that market at all.
It's also a low-yield market. If they have a spare slot at HND, they'll use it for other markets rather than to Korea.
Korean aviation is far from luxury thanks to the huge presence of Korean LCCs.
You do tend to get the sense that they're optimizing for SkyTeam standards rather than their *A/oneworld regional competitors.
Korean Air business class lounges really are not that great at all. Not good at ICN nor JFK. Same with BR as their business class lounges suck too.
That's why SkyTeam has always been considered by those in-the-know as second best, and the 'Leftovers alliance'. With only about two notable exceptions, SkyTeam airlines are meh.
The market is pretty important since it drastically increases the connecting funnel for longhaul service to the US and other markets (in both directions). The reason why these 3 cities see critical is that they provide a huge amount of Asia connecting traffic.
Korean Air is the one who will have control of the HND slot, so I assume they will have to continue their GMP and ICN services or give it up.
The issue is EVA and especially ANA will be hurt by the loss of Asiana. ANA only flies 3x between TYO and SEL vs OZ's 8x frequencies. For the TPE market, BR may just one up the frequency or upgauge the narrowbody flights.
Anko really delivered to his former masters, didn't he?
Nevertheless, SAS is very Scandinavian in trying not to stand out. Janteloven lives on. Taking pride in mediocrity, so they fit right in.
Yeah, it's uniquely a Delta bad thing, SkyTeam has decent Asian airlines. China Airlines is great. Garuda is pretty high up there too imo.
China Eastern is not that bad comparing to China Southern, a company that even cannot figure out what their own “CZ Priority” means themselves. And CEA’s MU Noodle campaign is pretty successful while they have the best sense of art, speaking of airplane interior in China - maybe Hainan’s also good, but it’s too small.
CI/CAL is usually considered the worst among Taiwan 3, but I think they are doing well on sense of art, no matter the livery or cabin. It’s just the big state bureaucracy vibe that drags it down. I won’t bother flying on their 359, 77W, or 21N every time and would enjoy having Taiwanese molded tofu and salted duck egg with porridge for breakfast. So, I guess Delta’s not doing that bad in Asia?
'SkyTeam has always been considered as second best by those 'in-the-know' who never travel to Central/South America and are happy to fly via CMN for all their journeys within Africa'. #fixed
They are connected by an underground train airside. There’s not much transit from 1-2 as t2 is primarily SkyTeam. T2 is actually very nice.
The airlines are decent, but for some reason, their lounge game is lacking...though China Airlines has a decent lounge. Korean and Garuda, not so much.
Most bottom of the barrel travelers don't have lounge access.
This isn't a priority pass lounge.
The best airport in the world, and especially now with the T2 extension. Spotless clean, modern, short waiting lines, excellent staff...
Well, I am not sure to how many lounges you have been to, but at the KE lounge, food is excellent. Well above what you get at the KLM lounge in AMS. It is a pretty nice lounge, well above most of the European lounges, for example, of many flagship first-tier airlines.
Also how great Taiwanese lounges are and how they and Japanese & Indian ones beat Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and ME3.
Though I'm confused since he insists that "my username is an ordinary, no-frills Air India A320neo, and not a luxurious A380 or something, because international travel can sometimes consist of very non-glamorous products and it’s your choice to accept them or not."
So I guess he's only willing to accept discomfort of his favorites and b*tch over that of his disliked ones.
Talking about Korea-HND flights, I wish KAL would shift at least one of their GMP-HND to PUS. Busan is actually my favourite city in Korea to visit, and there're a lot of demands too - KAL would be able to fly six daily GMP-HND flights following the merger as Japanese authorities decided to not impose any restrictions, so I guess they could spare at least one to the country's second biggest city and its metropolitan area with about seven million people.
#I’d love to understand the logic, because I’ve never been able to make sense of them.#
Maybe this tiny water thing is to prevent the guests from taking bottled water out of the lounge.
For all of Oneworld’s gaps in Argentina, South Africa and Kenya, we can all agree that the blue-circle alliance has far more premium lounges — even at non-Oneworld hubs, and SIN in particular — than SkyTeam. Lounge quality is what matters for this article, not network.
Wait forever. Your commentary is revealing of your prejudice. What Susie says of Sally says more of Susie than of Sally.
Singapore and Hong Kong have the best lounges in Asia, NOT Tokyo (except perhaps the JAL Sakura First Lounge) and certainly not Taipei (except the Starlux Galactic Lounge at T2). There’s some pro-JP/TW, anti-KR bias for you.
Garuda has good on-board service in first-class including meals on shorter domestic/regional flights but no alcohol and the lounge at Jakarta is awful. Worse than a Plaza Premium North American lounge.
China Eastern is consistently the worst Chinese airlines in terms of safety and service in recent years. The number of complaint cases is more than China southern and air china combined, as per data from CAAC.
Three stars? Lucky, you are very very generous. It looks ghastly. Layout, personal space, colours, lack of art: the committee had a mandate for N seats, and a low budget. They came in on time and under budget!
Korean deserves a better lounge approach.
There’s some pro-JP/TW, anti-KR bias for you.
That reminded me of a time when North Korea accused South Korea of a forced/child labor when the Lotte World Tower in Seoul was built.
Maybe you might have a good time bowing to the statue of two Kims.
Not good at all at LAX too. The space they have there is great but it's unfortunate the offering is trash.
I’m standing in line at ICN T2 security after having checked in at KE Premium check-in, a secluded area for Sky Priority and premium cabin pax. Ben, you should mention that there is no priority security lane whatsoever, unless I missed something. On the surface, it looks promising with a manned entrance to premium check in but then you just exit back into the regular part of the airport to join the excruciatingly long lines for security. The cherry on the cake, I’ve been asked to go to a separate CHECKED baggage inspection after security, seems like they singled out my check in luggage and I have the pleasure of having it inspected once more. Never seen this procedure in my 30+ years of flying.
This airport is a bit of a joke, I have to say…
If it's any consolation, the Asiana lounges aren't any better. Guess KE won't be making too many product announcements post-merger.
Just visited this lounge (West) at 6 a.m. The shower is run by an angry Korean woman who cannot speak any English, and doesn't seem to know what she's doing. I signed up for a shower at the kiosk, and within 2 minutes had notification on my phone that my shower was ready. My friend, who had signed up 45 minutes before me, was still waiting. So we went the shower together. The Korean woman at the shower yelled at us to get out, and she kept saying "Register! Register!" I showed her my text message, and she looked very confused. I showed her my # on her computer screen, but my shower was not ready. My friend's phone # didn't even show up on the computer. KAL really needs someone running the shower besides an angry woman who cannot comminicate with clients.
surely a very disappointing lounge, not what you would expect from a large Asian airline. I was there early in the morning as I had a 7:45 flight. The place looked more like a dormitory than a lounge. No food was there when I arrived, I came later and everything was gone immediately. Not to mention that the offering was really poor
Contrary to popular belief, lot of Korean and Asian people love instant noodles! They're a comfort food for some. However, I agree, it would be nice to also have fresh noodles available. My guess is fresh noodles are harder to handle, as they require constant attention otherwise the noodles will get soggy.
White American Jew man says lounge no good.
This is white American perspective.
Asian man thinks KAL Lounge good.
DIY bibimbap. Good for Korean taste.
Shin ramen is super popular & Koreans love it.
White American no like.
P/S I was just in ICN yesterday - there is a new “Garden West” KAL lounge at far end (near 218 or 208).