Flight Review: Seoul to Tokyo on Air Seoul A321
Flight#: RS701
From: Seoul-Incheon (ICN)
To: Tokyo-Narita (NRT)
Flight time: 2h
Aircraft: Airbus A321
Air Seoul is one of the several low cost airlines in South Korea, some of which are owned by the large full-service carriers.
In fact, Air Seoul is, together with Air Busan (named after the country’s second largest city), one of two low-cost subsidiaries of Asiana, Korea’s second largest airline.
It is possible, even likely, that the Air Seoul brand, just as that of its parent company Asiana, is discontinued in the near future, after these businesses were acquired by competitor Korean Air.
For the time being, though, Asiana continues to run Air Seoul as a relatively small low-cost operation, with 6 Airbus A321 aircraft, out of Seoul-Incheon.
This flight was the last leg of my all-A320-family trip from Barcelona to Tokyo, via Astana, and second to last in my full circumnavigation of the world, which concluded with a nearly 16-hour A350 flight on Iberia.
The passenger experience on Air Seoul: some notes
Let’s start by saying that, while I have been referring to Air Seoul as a “low-cost airline” it does have some elements that are rather more typical of hybrid airlines.
For example, I was positively surprised about the fact that, despite taking a rather basic fare, I could bring my carry-on luggage piece to the cabin.
Also worth noting is the style and the general aesthetics of the Air Seoul brand, which combines this sort of Kawaii casual style with a colour palette, with pales green and grey, that I think gives it a rather more upmarket appearance than typical low-cost carriers.
However, the airline’s website doesn’t seem to work very well. I completed my booking through a third party platform with no problem, but when I visited the airline’s website to check a couple of things, it was simply impossible to search anything in its internet booking engine, despite me trying in different browsers and even on the Korean language version of the site (see the blank box below). Perhaps just a temporary glitch…
Another surprise those passengers who are used to the super-weight conscious European low-cost carriers is that Air Seoul’s seats appear to be quite heavy and bulky, not least because they have seatback screens! (more on the IFE system shortly below)
There are two types of seats, the regular ones and the “Mint Zone” ones (nothing to do with JetBlue’s Mint class).
The “Mint” seats are those that have some extra space, either because they are at the front or on emergency row exits, and they are differentiated by the white headrests, instead of green for the regular ones (although, at first thought, I would have associated “Mint” to the green colour!)
So, on the picture above you can see how the regular Air Seoul seat looks like.
I have seen that Air Seoul operates its A321s in two different configurations, one of them way more denser than the other (220 vs 195 seats in a single cabin). I guess mine was possibly of the less dense sort, because the seat pitch felt pretty alright for a budget carrier.
Interestingly for a cabin that felt a bit dated (note also the fabric-upholstered seats with the low pouch in front), the seats were fitted with in-seat power!
And what do we find in that pouch?
A duty-free magazine (another element that is becoming increasingly rare in Europe) and the inflight menu. In this regard, Air Seoul follows the low-cost rulebook and charges for inflight food and drink.
As you can see below, the inflight shopping catalogue was also overloaded with cuteness!
And last, but not least, let’s comment on the inflight entertainment system.
To be honest, it’s been a very long time since I last saw a seatback inflight entertainment system on a narrowbody aircraft operated by a no-frills airline, even more so if we consider access was free.
The system can be controlled both via touch screen and via this bulky console underneath the screen. And it is good to have both because the touch screen was not very responsive (kind of an old legacy one).
BUT, tbh, besides the nice airline-branded kawaii cartoons and the moving map, the inflight entertainment system is pretty limited and I guess they keep it in place, simply because it is just there and would be too complicated to replace in the short term.
There catalogue is limited to four movies plus some small snippets of corporate information (all in Korean). I found the flight information the most valuable part of the inflight content (better than nothing at all, after all!)
Using this last picture to show some other elements found on the Air Seoul seat which, while small, are, I think nice details to have: 1) The glass holder on the left 2) USB port next to the screen 3) Retractable coat hanger which does not interfere with the neighbour.
Our Take:
A bit of mixed impressions. On one hand Air Seoul’s experience feels a bit dated, on the other hand, it has some nice details that you have stopped expecting on low-cost flights. Overall I think it is good value for short flights.