Review: Air Premia Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – Tokyo Narita to Seoul Incheon

This is review details my experience on an Air Premia Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in July 2024. You can read my much more detailed full trip report of this flight by clicking here.

About the Airline

Expectations

Pre-Flight Experience

Having booked my ticket via the Trip app, I am unable to comment on Air Premia’s booking process. However, the airline’s website is sleek and modern, and all pages of this, bar the duty free sub-website, were available in English, Japanese and Korean. My only complaint is that seeing as Air Premia operate five days a week to Bangkok, it would have also been nice to see Thai added to this list.

Once I had received my ticket, I was able to manage my booking via Air Premia’s website. This gave me the option to top up my complimentary 23kg baggage allowance or to select a seat. Focusing on the latter, those on the cheapest tickets could pay to sit in the exit rows, bulkhead seats, or those in the forward Economy cabin. However, what stood out for me given Air Premia’s quasi low-cost carrier status was the ability to reserve any ‘regular’ seat in the rear Economy cabin at no extra charge and I thus pre-reserved Seat 32A.

Theoretically, Air Premia offers an online check-in service for passengers up to 24 hours before departure. However, upon attempting to do this I was soon stopped in my tracks and received an error message. A quick search revealed that in reality, Air Premia’s online check-in service was not yet functional, which was a slight disappointment given the fact that the airline had been flying passengers for almost three years at the time of my flight.

Costs

Airport Experience

Considering my inability to check-in online, despite not making use of the airline’s 23kg hold luggage allowance, that morning I had no option but to stop by at Air Premia’s seven check-in desks at Narita Airport’s Terminal 2. Considering Air Premia’s status as a fairly small airline, I was pleasantly surprised to find the airline’s desks to be well-branded, with plenty of signage up directing passengers to the correct queue. These were primarily staffed by Swissport agents, however, a Korean-speaking Air Premia supervisor could be seen hovering around ready to assist and I spotted more Korean-speaking Air Premia staff members at the gate, assisting their Swissport counterparts.

Hoping to spend plenty of time exploring the airside portion of Terminal 2, I made it to Air Premia’s check-in desks just before they opened by which time a reasonable eighteen-passenger long queue could already be seen. With exactly three hours to go until departure, in true Japanese fashion, the Swissport agents stood in front of the counters, bowed at the waiting passengers and took their positions behind their desks. After this, the line moved along very quickly and before I knew it I was being seen by a polite yet quiet agent. Without issue, once I had informed them of my booking reference and how long I would be staying in Korea, my boarding pass was printed off and I was able to continue on my way.

Boarding commenced ahead of schedule with forty minutes to go until our departure and was an efficient affair, with an army of gate staff arranging passengers into three queues – one for Premium Economy passengers, and two for those in the front and rear Economy cabins. Importantly, the gate staff seemed to be polite and friendly, and I was left with absolutely no complaints about the boarding process.

Seat and Cabin

Air Premia’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners come in two different configurations, with two different cabin designs. Of their five aircraft, two of these previously operated for the ill-fated long haul arm of Norwegian (technically Norwegian Air UK) and had not undergone any sort of notable cabin transformation since their days primarily flying Transatlantic slogs from London Gatwick. Meanwhile, the remaining three aircraft were delivered directly from Boeing and feature Air Premia’s famously spacious layout.

Wanting to get the full Air Premia experience, that day I was delighted to end up on Air Premia’s first-ever aircraft. This features 253 modern Recaro CL3710 seats, which are arranged in a 3-3-3 layout and sport a dark blue fabric cover, topped by an adjustable pleather headrest. The rears of these feature a high-definition inflight entertainment screen, along with a literature compartment, seatback pocket, bifold tray table and a coat hook. Turning to the literature compartment, this contained a safety card, sick bag, wifi information card and a duty free catalogue. Last but not least, at-seat power came in the form of a USB port, and upon testing this later on in the flight, I found this to work without issue.

Having high expectations when it came to comfort, once seated I was not left disappointed. Not only was this soft and well-padded, but this was by far the most spacious Economy seat that I have ever had the pleasure of sitting in. In fact, on multiple occasions, I had to remind myself that I was on a semi-low-cost carrier! Needless to say, I would not have had any opposition to sitting in the seat on a long slog to Newark or Los Angeles.

Looking around, signs of wear and tear were minimal, although as seems to be a common problem on Dreamliners the world over, there were some marks on the window dimmer. Likewise, this was relatively clean although not completely spotless and crumbs could be seen along the bottom of the cabin side walls, whilst I also spotted some ink marks around the literature compartment.

Seeing as we would be in the air for less than two hours, unsurprisingly, unlike Air Premia’s longer services, neither a pillow nor blanket was provided. However, packets of typically Economy Class quality earbud-type headphones could be found in each seat during boarding for those who wished to use the inflight entertainment system.

Lavatories

Making a quick pre-departure trip to one of the Dreamliner’s lavatories, I found this to be spotlessly clean, stocked with all the basics and in tip-top condition, serving its purpose and leaving me with absolutely nothing to complain about.

Inflight Entertainment

Of all the things in the flight, I feel that Air Premia’s entertainment system was the one area in which the carrier was significantly lacking. As listed below, this featured a very limited selection of films and television content, with no non-Korean options and just three kids’ programmes provided. Needless to say, I would recommend those travelling on Air Premia bring their own entertainment along with them.

Other than the lack of content, the system itself was actually very good, with this being sleek and modern in its design, quick-to-load and easy to navigate. Not to mention the high-quality Flightpath3D moving map which offered a wide plethora of ways for passengers to track the flight as we sped eastwards towards the Korean Peninsula.

Aside from the inflight entertainment, wifi was also provided, and I was very pleased to find that all passengers could connect to this for an hour without payment, and use this to send and receive messages and photos via all the major messaging apps. Testing this out, I found this to work without issue and was a very welcome addition to the flight. Had I wanted to use this for more than an hour, and/or if I wanted to use this to surf the web, a selection of reasonably priced paid-for options were offered.

Catering

Air Premia’s status as a hybrid airline is reflected in its onboard catering, with passengers provided with a complimentary offering followed by a buy-on-board service. On their longer flights, passengers are served two hot meals, whilst an array of snacks and drinks are offered for sale in between these in a manner which isn’t too dissimilar to some full-service airlines (ahem…Finnair).

Given the short flight time, that day the complimentary offering came in the form of a sweet light snack – a chia seed and cranberry cookie. Meanwhile, complimentary drink offerings were limited to still water and hot coffee. Anyone still peckish after this would have had to turn to the buy-on-board menu which could be found on the inflight entertainment system. This offered a compact selection of beers, spirits, soft drinks and ramyeon, which, price-wise seemed to be in line with other Korean low-cost carriers. Whilst tempted by Air Premia’s own lager, Beer Premia, I decided to pass on this and settled for a complimentary cup of black coffee.

Crew

Onboard, I found all crew members to be delightfully polite and friendly for the duration of the flight. Upon boarding and disembarkation, I received a welcoming barrage of welcomes and farewells. Meanwhile, as is always good to see, the crew seemed to undertake their pre-departure and pre-arrival checks in a thorough and comprehensive manner, for example, by ensuring that all overhead lockers were properly closed.

However, turning to the negatives, I did notice that whilst a significant portion of the flight’s passenger load hailed from Japan, there were no Japanese-speaking crew members onboard. Not only this, but there were no pre-recorded Japanese versions of any announcements, including safety-related announcements, and no Japanese version or subtitles of Air Premia’s safety video.

Summary

For the most part, I was left very impressed by my experience with Air Premia. Granted, whilst there were some things that could have been improved, such as the lack of an online check-in service, or the almost non-existent range of content on the inflight entertainment system, the fantastically comfortable and spacious seat, the decent complimentary offering and the polite and friendly crew made up for this. With all things considered, I would be more than happy to fly with Air Premia again at some point in the future. However, that said, were I to end up flying onboard a comparatively cramped ex-Norwegian Dreamliner on a thirteen-hour slog to Newark, then my opinion of the carrier may be a little different! Additionally, as great as Air Premia may be, for the time being, I probably wouldn’t pay a premium to fly with the airline on a long haul service over the likes of Asiana Airlines or Korean Air. However, if the price was right, I wouldn’t hesitate to fly with them on a long haul service.