A decidedly blah Korean Air experience – Part 2 Manila to Seoul

Posted by Seth on September 8, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Read Part 1 here

Back to the airport now in Manila and getting ready for my return trip.  Fortunately I had been able to find reward inventory in Business Class for the return so my hopes and expectations were slightly higher.  Of course, knowing what I did of the lounges I should have been more guarded but I wanted to believe that the blah experience thus far was because I was in the back of the plane.

Manila’s airport is quite lively late at night.  There are wide-body flights headed to Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Korea (3 flights) Singapore and several other destinations.  That meant plenty of people around and no seats to be found.  Since the check-in counter doesn’t open until around three hours prior to the flight that meant I was stuck sitting on a baggage cart for about an hour waiting for the agents to arrive.  Part of that is my fault – I chose to arrive early so that I could do the drive to the airport in daylight- but it was still annoying.  The staff had a bit of a show that they performed when opening the check-in counters (it was all in Korean but the rest of the passengers applauded so I guess they did well) and then I was finally able to deposit my bag, collect my boarding pass and head through immigration and to the lounge. 

The dining spread at the Korean Air lounge in Manila

Finally, a lounge with food and a full complement of booze.  Sure, the brands were less than exemplary – Absolut vodka, Gilbey’s gin and a local rum that was passable but unremarkable – but at least there were options.  They also had some actual food options beyond packaged snacks.  Nothing truly delicious, but a bit of food to tide me over.

I wanted to pick up some alcohol at duty-free but I wasn’t sure if I would be permitted to carry it through the security screening passing back through Seoul so I asked at the desk.  You’d think I had asked the woman the answer to the meaning of life or some other such complicated inquiry.  The response started as a simple “I don’t know” and only when I pressed did she make an effort to find out.  All of their flights go via Seoul.  This seems like the kind of thing that passengers might ask rather frequently.  I didn’t expect it to take 20 minutes to figure out an answer.  I helped myself to some snacks since they actually had some available and eventually got the answer to my question so I headed out to buy my booze.  I wish that the answer had been more accurate.  I was able to clear security in Seoul with the duty free just fine but upon boarding my flight to the USA I learned that they only permit duty-free purchased in Seoul to be carried onto the planes bound for the USA.  Even though the bottle was in the stupid tamper-proof bag and was purchased 10 hours earlier.  Fortunately they were able to check it for me but I have no idea if it will arrive in one piece or not. 

I also asked about postcard stamps.  I had finally found cards and written them but had yet to find stamps.  The guy at the information booth in the airport said that I should be able to find them past security.  I couldn’t.  I asked at the lounge and she said that they were sold at a store there but she didn’t know which one.  Based on the trouble with the duty free inquiry I didn’t push it any farther and resigned myself to the fact that I likely had postcards that would never be mailed.  Still, not the type of service I had expected to receive from the folks in the lounge.

First and Business on a KE A330

Midnight rolled around and I wandered over to the gate area and made my way into my seat.  Not the most comfortable in the world – recliner style – but it would do for the 3.5 hour flight.  In truth, I tried to stay awake for the dinner.  I actually went so far as to tell the flight attendant that I wanted the bibimbop option.  And then I promptly fell asleep.  Again they were very apologetic that they were unable to serve me since I was asleep and I once again explained that the sleep was more useful to me than the food.  Smiles and nods all around and then I was off to the rather pedestrian lounge that I’d spent so much time in on the outbound journey for another shower and an attempt to make a breakfast from their meager offerings.  I also needed to see about my seat on the upper deck of the 747. 

I’ve only had a few opportunities to sit on the upper deck.  There was the United fare mistake to New Zealand a couple years ago but we were stuck downstairs in both directions on that flight.  And then there was this trip.  I reserved a seat upstairs in advance and everything was looking so good.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  At the counter in the lounge they explained to me that there was no upper deck.  Suffice it to say that I was very confused.  It was definitely still a 747-400 plane but there were no upper deck seats.  “How is this possible?” I asked.  “The upper deck does not exist,” was the reply.  Once we got past the part about how they couldn’t simply remove the bubble from the top of the plane I was able to show them a seat map and they looked it up some other way on their system.  Apparently the upper deck was being used as overflow seating for economy customers on this flight.  So it was back downstairs, albeit to a lovely bulkhead window seat, for me.  Walking through the cabin I can see why – not an empty seat to be found in the economy cabin.  I’m still annoyed; another chance at flying upstairs lost to the fickle whim of the travel gods.

Three beers and a shower in the lounge later I wandered out into the terminal in one final effort to find stamps and mail my postcards.  I was successful!  Cards posted and the clock rapidly approaching noon had me on my way to the gate area to board the flight.  Strange coincidence at the gate area.  There was a guy struggling with his phone charger in the lounge so I lent him an adapter to use.  I ended up standing next to him in line to board the plane.  And then I found myself sitting next to him on the flight.  Just one of those strange coincidences in life, I guess.

More coming in part 3…

A decidedly blah Korean Air experience – Part 1 JFK to Manila

Posted by Seth on September 5, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

The Asian airlines have quite the reputation going for themselves.  Phenomenal service is considered the norm, the minimum that one should expect while flying with them.  The lounges are supposed to be better than those of the American carriers and the in-flight product is supposed to as well.  As I am sitting on my fourth Korean Air flight of the week – two in coach and two in business, two long haul and two regional – I am seriously wondering where this reputation comes from.  The entire experience has been most notable for its lack of anything exceptional.  Maybe I’m being too judgmental.  Maybe the expectations I had were unreasonable.  But I don’t really think so.

The trip started with a 12:50am departure from New York City to Seoul.  That is sufficiently late that I wasn’t really expecting to eat a full meal on the plane right at departure.  I would be sleeping.  I somewhat expected that their business class lounge at JFK airport would have some snacks or light finger foods of some sort.  I was horribly overly optimistic.  The selection of snacks rivaled that of Continental’s Presidents Clubs, hardly the standard bearer when it comes to munchies.  And the alcohol selection was – while self service – miserably poor.  There was Scotch, brandy and whiskey.  And beer.  No other liquors to be found.  Top it all off with the fact that the lounge was impressively crowded and it all adds up to a lounge that I see no reason to visit again.

Mid-flight breakfast

Back to the flight.  With the early morning departure I was asleep within about 15 minutes from wheels up so I have no idea what the first meal option they served was.  The second meal was served 6 hours into the flight – right in the middle – disrupting any chance of getting a full night’s sleep.  I was roused by the sound of the carts rolling by and became coherent enough to grunt and nod yes when asked if I wanted breakfast.  Sure, it is just airline food, and coach food at that for my outbound flights, but I’m not really sure that is was meant to be served at that point in the flight.  That also meant that the following 6 hours were food-free, right up through the 4am arrival in Seoul, where there were no real food options to speak of available.  Fortunately I had liberated a couple packets of Fig Newtons from the lounge at JFK. 

The legroom destroyer

The coach seats were fine as far as coach seating goes.  Like most planes these days the in-flight entertainment system has some heavy-duty gear that sits under a seat at some point blocking leg room and Korean’s 747s are no exception.  Fortunately for me that blockage is under the middle seat and I had a window so I was unencumbered. The entertainment system is decent, with a wide selection of music and movies, though none I really wanted to see. There are about 30 in English, mostly new releases. I did watch Back to the Future at some point, though I was still pretty much in a sleepy haze. At one point I wanted to watch the in-flight map and track our journey. Instead I found myself watching a rotating series of ads for hotels in Seoul, Los Angeles, Waikiki Beach and a few other places. There were also a number of ads for Korean Air, their Skypass frequent flier program, their AVOD system and SkyTeam. There was a notice that all flights are non-smoking and a cute teddy bear wearing a seat belt, reminding us to buckle up. Each display page was on the screen for about 15-20 seconds and the total loop was around 8 minutes long. Of that time about 3 minutes was actually the in-flight map. Rather pathetic, really. On the plus side, I now have a list of about 8 hotels that I won’t give my business to since they interfered with my in-flight map watching ability.

At least the sunrise (or sunset, I’m not entirely certain) I saw during the flight was rather pretty.

Sunrise (or sunset??) somewhere over the Pacific

Transiting Seoul was pleasant for the decent shower I was able to get (though no toilet in the shower room; saves space but can present issues when trying to perform the three “S” of morning ablutions) but wholly unremarkable in every other way.  The alcohol selection was similarly limited to that available in New York (no vodka for a bloody mary??) and the food options were arguably worse.  This from their flagship lounge at their hub in their home city.  At this point I grabbed another beer from the cooler and went from being relatively neutral on the whole thing to rather unimpressed.  The food did get better for short stints at a couple points throughout the day but overall it was not what I would expect from an Asian carrier that presents itself as offering a premium product.  It is certainly worthwhile to get out of the lounge and out of the airport if you have the time while transiting Seoul.  Staying in the lounge for more than about 3 hours could lead to bouts of depression and general malaise.  It is not recommended.

The flight from Seoul to Manila was uneventful though that likely comes from the fact that I slept the entire time.  The flight attendants did stop by to mention that they tried to serve me dinner but I was asleep.  Such is life.  Two flights and three meals served and I had only actually seen one of them.  And eaten zero.

At this point in the trip the good stuff happened.  I was underwater for four full days of diving that could not have been better. 

Read more in Part 2, coming soon.

Some photos from diving in the Philippines

Posted by Seth on August 31, 2009 under Trip Reports | 3 Comments to Read

The diving in Anilao, Philippines is ridiculously amazing.  Off the charts beautiful.  I spent just over 4 hours underwater today and am hoping to spend even more time under tomorrow.  With the boat rides to the sites, eating the great food and trying to carve out a bit of time to sleep that doesn’t leave much time for writing great posts here.  But I don’t really have to write all that much when I can just post the photos that show how wonderful the underwater environment is here.  This is just a sample of the scenes I got to experience today.  Minimal bandwidth on the internet connection here precludes me sharing more, but they will be posted soon enough.  Enjoy!