Review: Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 – Seoul Gimpo to Jeju

This is review details my experience on a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 in June 2024. You can read my much more detailed full trip report of this flight by clicking here.

About the Airline

Expectations

Pre-Flight Experience

Historically, booking domestic tickets with Korean carriers occasionally proved to be an unnecessarily cumbersome experience. However, I can happily say that those days are long gone and I thus had no reason not to book my ticket directly with Jeju Air. Doing so via Jeju Air’s website, I found this to be modern and easy to navigate, with the only slightly disappointing aspect of this being that this was only available in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, with no sign of any Southeast Asian language despite having a very significant presence in the region.

Overall, booking tickets was a quick and easy experience. Being a low-cost carrier, during the booking process I was encouraged to upgrade my flight package to one that included a greater amount of hold luggage and a pre-assigned seat. Alternatively, I could top up my hold luggage and/or add a pre-assigned seat separately. Deciding to pre-reserve a window seat, once I had selected Seat 23F and entered all of my details, I made a quick and easy payment and almost instantly received my booking confirmation.

Online check-in for Jeju Air’s services commences 24 hours before departure, and upon reaching this window I checked in via the airline’s app quickly and without issue. As is usually the case for Korean domestic services, this was a simple affair that required me to do little other than re-confirm the personal details that I had entered upon booking my ticket.

Costs

Airport Experience

Having successfully checked in online and not carrying any hold luggage, I did not need to visit Jeju Air’s check-in desks at Gimpo Airport. However, I did wander past these and found the airline’s four desks to be well-branded with plenty of Jeju Air signage, with a good number of staff on hand ready and waiting to assist passengers. In addition, those flying with Jeju Air are able to make use of the Korea Airport Corporation-owned self-check-in machines dotted around the check-in hall.

Boarding commenced on time, and those who required assistance were invited to board first. After this, all other passengers were requested to board regardless of their row. Despite this, boarding was a calm affair and despite a full flight, the last passenger made it onto the jet with around four minutes to go until our scheduled departure time. Furthermore, I found the Jeju Air gate staff to be polite and friendly, thereby leaving me with zero complaints.

Seat and Cabin

When you fly with Jeju Air, you never know quite what you are going to get in terms of your aircraft’s cabin design. Some aircraft feature Jeju Air’s grey fabric seat covers that are complete with a repeating themed pattern, others feature the interiors of their former operators, whilst their newer deliveries feature smart dark grey and orange pleather seat covers.

Once onboard, it was revealed that my aircraft featured the interior of its former operator, TUI Airways. This extended to the light blue mood lighting, which I found to be a nice touch and not one that is all too common on pre-Sky Interior Boeing 737NGs. Each seat took the form of an older Recaro model, covered in a dark pleather cover and topped by a disposable fabric antimacassar.

Upon taking my seat, I was delighted to find that for a low-cost carrier, this was fairly comfortable and offered an ample amount of legroom. Meanwhile, the area around this was spotlessly clean and whilst far from being the newest jet in the world, signs of wear and tear were limited.

Being a very short-haul domestic flight, amenities were neither expected nor received. However, those on Jeju Air’s longer services can purchase a blanket for a reasonable 15,000 won (£8.63).

Lavatories

As with most Boeing 737-800s, three lavatories were present onboard the aircraft – one squeezed in between the forward galley and cockpit, and another two at the rear of the cabin. Making use of one of the lavatories at the rear of the jet before departure, I found this to be in a clean and tidy condition, stocked with the basics and thus leaving me with nothing to complain about.

Inflight Entertainment

No entertainment could be found onboard, with no inflight magazine, overhead screens, personal inflight entertainment screens, wifi-based streaming service or wifi. Granted, this was not an issue given the length of the flight down to Jeju.

However, on longer services, Jeju Air offers an ‘In-flight FUN service’, which includes the crew giving tarot readings, makeovers, magic shows and balloon animals amongst other things!

Catering

Being a low-cost carrier, Jeju Air offers nothing by means of complimentary service onboard. As is standard practice on most Korean low-cost carriers when flying domestically, given the length of the flight, no service carts were rolled out and instead a flight attendant walked through the cabin displaying a menu, with passengers invited to stop them as they passed through or press their call bell if they wanted to purchase anything.

Looking at the buy-on-board menu, this featured an array of drinks and snacks, with the most substantial offering coming in the form of ramen. However, interestingly, this lacked any hot drink options! Meanwhile, those on the airline’s longer services have the option of pre-reserving a hot meal in advance. In terms of prices, I found items in the buy-on-board menu to broadly fall in line with those of other Korean low-cost carriers, being neither notably more expensive nor cheaper.

Crew

Being a short domestic hop, there isn’t all too much I can say about the crew as my interactions with them were very minimal. However, I received a barrage of friendly welcomes and farewells upon boarding and disembarkation respectively, and during the flight, the crew seemed to be polite and professional thus leaving me with no complaints.

Summary

Whilst my experience with Jeju Air has been somewhat hit and miss in the past (primarily due to the seemingly frequent delays that I had been subject to when flying with them), that lunchtime, Jeju Air left me with few complaints. Granted, we may have arrived almost thirty minutes behind schedule, however, I found the aircraft to be comfortable and clean, whilst the crew were polite and friendly. Ultimately, given the low price I paid for the ticket and the fact that this was a short domestic hop, I was rather limited in the number of complaints that I could make, and, I would probably be happy to fly with the airline again.