Review: Asiana Airbus A380 – Seoul Incheon to Tokyo Narita

This is review details my experience on an Asiana Airlines Airbus A380 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 ride over to Tokyo on the Trip app, I can’t comment all too much on Asiana Airlines’ booking experience. However, I should mention that I have previously booked a fair few domestic tickets via Asiana Airlines’ app and website, and I have yet to encounter an issue with either of these. However, it should be noted that despite being a major airline, Asiana Airlines does not allow for payment to be made via American Express.

As one would hope (but is not always the case), once I had purchased my ticket and received a booking reference, I had no issues with managing my booking via Asiana Airlines’ website. This enabled me to select any ‘regular’ seat on the Airbus A380’s main deck for free, whilst I could pay an additional fee to reserve a bulkhead or emergency exit row seat, or a seat in the first few rows of the main cabin or the smaller Economy cabin at the rear of the upper deck.

Asiana Airlines offers an online check-in service, and passengers on most flights can check in up to 48 hours before their flight. However, seeing as I had a one-way ticket to Tokyo and not being a Japanese citizen, I was unsure of whether or not this would work seeing as a staff member may have to check proof of onward travel. Nevertheless, upon reaching this window, I made my way over to Asiana Airlines’ app and tried my luck with this. Much to my delight, this worked and I was able to select any vacant seat, including those that had to be paid for before check-in opening. In the end, I picked a window seat in the small Economy cabin on the upper deck, and after a few taps, I received my mobile boarding pass.

Costs

Airport Experience

Whilst my ticket included a 23kg hold luggage allowance, seeing as I would be in Japan for just a single night, I did not need to lug a suitcase around with me and thus lacked any hold luggage. In addition, seeing as I already held a mobile boarding pass, upon arriving at the airport I could have made a beeline for security and immigration. However, being an enthusiast, I decided to head to the check-in area to obtain a paper boarding pass that I could retain as a souvenir from this unusual short haul Airbus A380 service.

Seeing as Asiana Airlines is the largest operator utilising Incheon Airport’s Terminal 1, with this being the airline’s main hub, unsurprisingly the airline featured a large check-in area near one end of the terminal’s gigantic check-in hall. There, plenty of well-branded check-in desks, automated bag drop-off counters, check-in machines and a large separate private check-in area for Business Class passengers could be found, whilst plenty of Asiana Airport ground staff could be seen lingering about ready and waiting to assist passengers. Making my way to one of the check-in machines, I was able to load up my reservation without issue and within no more than 45 seconds or so, my boarding pass for the flight ahead was printed off and I was all set to head to Tokyo.

That morning, boarding was scheduled to commence forty minutes before departure and three jetbridges could be seen connected to the Airbus A380 outside. Boarding commenced right on time and was a fairly efficient, calm and well-ordered affair, whilst plenty of gate staff assisted with this and seemed to be polite, friendly and helpful, leaving me with no complaints. Despite being a busy service that morning, boarding was completed with over ten minutes to go until our scheduled departure time, and the aircraft was pushed back away from its parking position right on time at 0900.

Seat and Cabin

Asiana Airlines’ Airbus A380 fleet features 417 modern Zodiac Aerospace seats which are spread across three cabins – two on the main deck behind the airline’s former First Class suites (now marketed as Business Suites), and a much smaller cabin at the rear of the upper deck behind the Business Smartium cabin. On the main deck, these are arranged in an Airbus A380 standard 3-4-3 configuration, whilst on the upper deck, the curvature of the fuselage limits the layout to 2-4-2.

All of Asiana Airlines’ fleet features a standard cabin design, with each Economy seat sporting beige fabric covers adorned by some subtle multicoloured swirls and topped with a red fabric antimacassar that partially covers the adjustable headrest. In addition to these, onboard the airline’s Airbus A380s, each Economy seat features a coat hook, a bifold tray table, a USB port, a seatback pocket, a universal power outlet and a pull-down footrest, whilst a large high-definition inflight entertainment screen and a basic controller could also be found on the rears of each seat. Additionally, those travelling in the window seats of the upper deck Economy cabin are also afforded the luxury of their own storage compartments beneath the windows.

Once seated, I was delighted to find that the area around my seat was spotless and in tip-top condition, with virtually no signs of wear and tear. Meanwhile, the seat was soft, well-padded and highly spacious, leading me to conclude that I would have zero issues sitting in this on say a thirteen-hour slog across the world to New York. Turning to the seatback pocket, this contained the safety card, sick bag, a copy of Asiana Airlines’ duty free catalogue, an order form and a laminated card which advertised a 30% discount on spirits when purchasing these as a pair.

Given the short length of the flight, neither pillows nor blankets were provided to those in Economy and I am not too sure as to whether these were available upon request. However, standard Economy quality headphones were offered, with these having been placed in passengers’ seatback pockets.

Lavatories

A quick trip to the lavatory revealed this to be in tip-top condition, being both clean, tidy and stocked with the basics, leaving me with no complaints. However, I should mention that I did visit this before departure.

Inflight Entertainment

With Asiana Airlines having halted the publication of their inflight magazine in December 2020, and wifi only available onboard their Airbus A350 fleet, just one form of entertainment was provided for passengers to pass the time, the inflight entertainment system. Having read a fair number of Asiana Airlines trip reports, it seems like the lack of content variety on the airline’s OZ:Enter entertainment system is a frequently raised complaint, and I was eager to see whether or not this was really an issue. That morning, this system could be used from the moment that the safety video had finished until the aircraft arrived on the stand at Tokyo Narita, allowing for around two hours of virtually uninterrupted entertainment consumption.

Starting with the basics, the system was available in four languages (Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean), was somewhat dated and clunky in its layout, and lacked any particularly memorable features. However, on the flip side, this was highly responsive to touch and quick-to-load, whilst all visual items played without any advertisements playing first. As is fairly standard on Airbus A380s, the aircraft’s external cameras could be accessed through the inflight entertainment system, allowing for enthusiasts to entertain themselves during the more ‘exciting’ phases of the flight! However, I should note that the moving map was a little dated and lacked any interactive functions, instead of simply scrolling through various pages. Finally, those travelling with children will be glad to hear that a separate child-friendly ‘Asiana Littles’ system was offered.

Examining the system’s content, scrolling through this, I counted a total of 116 films, which for comparison is a little over a third of the number of films available to watch on Korean Air. Most of these took the form of Hollywood or Korean hits, with a small number of Chinese, Japanese and French films also available to watch alongside a single option from India. For those looking for a shorter watch, 86 television programmes were provided which again were mostly from Korea and the US. When it came to music options, this featured a total of 67 albums and 17 playlists, alongside 15 audiobooks (although only two of these were in English) and a ‘Let’s Learn Korean’ playlist. To summarise, whilst Asiana Airlines’ OZ:Enter system was not the worst or most compact system in the world, it failed to rival that of many major international airlines across the world. To compare this to another system, this seemed to be fairly similar in its range of content to Japan Airlines’ MAGIC-VI system that I had sampled when flying from London to Tokyo two weeks before this flight.

Catering

Despite being a short two-hour hop, Asiana Airlines serves a hot meal to those flying between Seoul and Tokyo. Indeed this is somewhat standard on this route, with all legacy carriers bar Ethiopian Airlines and Japan Airlines undertaking a similar service. Once the crew had been released from their seats, it wasn’t long before they took to the aisles and began handing out that morning’s meals.

As listed below, there was only one option available, and non-meat eaters who did not pre-reserve a special meal would have been disappointed. Whilst not being the most standard breakfast, when it came to quantity and quality, the meal left me with absolutely nothing to complain about and was a very welcome addition to this short service. This was accompanied by a round of drinks, however, I was a little disappointed by the lack of soft drink options. Nevertheless, going some way to make up for this, once the main meals had been handed out, the crew seemed to constantly patrol the cabin offering coffee and tea top-ups to those in need of some extra caffeine. Furthermore, the crew were also proactive in removing trays from those who had already polished off their meals before undertaking a full tray and rubbish collection round about thirty minutes after the meal service commenced.

Crew

That morning, all crew members that I interacted with seemed to be polite and friendly, leaving me with absolutely no complaints. Furthermore, during boarding, the crew seemed to be proactive in helping passengers locate their seats and store their luggage, whilst during disembarkation I received a welcome barrage of thanks and farewells. Additionally, as is always nice to find, Asiana Airlines had scheduled a Japanese-speaking crew member on this service who repeated all onboard announcements after these had been made in Korean and English.

Summary

For the most part, Asiana Airlines left me with no real complaints. Onboard, I found their Airbus A380 to be comfortable, clean and in tip-top condition. The crew were all very polite, welcoming and friendly, and the hot meal was definitely appreciated given the short length of the service and was a far cry from anything I could expect to receive back on a similar length flight at home in Europe! Whilst I had a few minor complaints, such as the lack of wifi and the dated inflight entertainment system, these were most definitely not issues given the length of the flight and my lack of a need to keep in contact with the outside world. With everything considered, I would happily fly with Asiana Airlines on a short, medium or long haul flight.