A Decent Economy Class Experience on Korean Air—Go Figure
by Brendon Carr
On this latest trip to San Francisco, since I’m working against my own marketing-expense budget, I booked economy class and used accrued frequent-flyer mileage (30,000) to upgrade to business (on Korean Air, “Prestige Class”) for the SEL-SFO leg. Coming back today, I flew economy because it’s “high season” in the States and they wanted 45,000 miles for the upgrade. I’ve got a lot of miles accrued, but that’s rich for my blood.
Anyway, as it turns out my experience in economy class was surprisingly better. The airframe for both legs of the flight was the Boeing 777-200. The seats in business are excellent, allowing full recline for sleep. Ordinarily I need the legroom, and find economy to be way too cramped—especially given that Koreans generally are not that tall. Take a knee-knocking ride on a Korean inter-city bus sometime and see what I mean.
On the Korean Air 777-200, they’ve adopted a seat pitch that leaves enough legroom for a 6’ 1” American male like me. Each seat has its own video screen in the seat-back, and—and—a power port for laptop power adapters as well as an Ethernet port. (Sedgwick, if you read this, you’re right—I wasted W50,000 on that MacBook airline power adapter.) Internet service was not active on my flight, but the existence of the Ethernet port points to a future welcome development. (Will Internet be free on KAL? Korea is the “world’s most wired” country, after all.)
The business class flight from Seoul to San Francisco last week was made miserable by the fact that I was seated next to a gassy Korean businessman whose ceaseless farts were eye-wateringly foul. Twelve hours turned away from that dude with my palm cupped over my nose and I was in no shape for my meetings. He also took his shoes off, and those socks were no treat either.
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He he
Fart jokes.
he he
They always classy up a story.
he he
Farting passenger with no shoes and stinky feet....argh...i wouldn’t sit still for that if I could help it...usually if you explain the situation to the flight attendant she can reseat you (not supposed to but they usually will)
At the very least you could have asked the flight attendant to bring him a pair of those booties and suggest that he put them on:)
better luck next time
I’ll be on the lookout for the 777 flights. The ones I take are usually 747, and I’ve found the legroom too tight AND the seats extremely uncomfortable. I recently took economy on an Airbus 330 (only ICN-NRT), and found those seats to be MUCH more comfortable. -Chris
Crossing the pond over the years, I’ve had my best experience with the Airbus birds - they might not recline as well as I’d like, but the legroom was acceptable each seat had its own video screen and user-selectable video, and not just the current crummy movie two months removed from theaters. One of the offerings was actually “The Graduate,” and there were a few other good classics in there.
Unfortunately, when I fly back to Korea this Sunday, it’s on Uncle Sam’s dime and he graciously picked my flight for me. I get a creaky old 747 with interiors designed for dwarven folk and viewscreens requiring one to twist his or her neck at angles not intended by nature.
Had a couple of questions:
1. Did they have AVOD in economy?
2. In economy, was it a 3-3-3 config or a 2-5-2 config?
Thanks,
Sorry for late reply, Prashant. The answers are: Yes, there was video-on-demand in economy, with a very good selection of programs. The seats were configured 3-3-3.