Asiana Business Class Review Seoul (ICN) to Honolulu (HNL) A330
After the less than perfect ride from Tashkent, we were hoping we'd get better equipment on the A330 on Asiana from Seoul to Honolulu. No such luck - the seat is a little wider and a little newer, but it's still the same old terrible angled lie-flat that just has nothing comfortable in it.
The Asiana Business Class Lounge has added hot food to its repertoire and that was very edible - to my surprise, it was actually spicy!
Business class was just about 70% full and I got a two-seater to myself in a 2-2-2 configuration. The cabin is more akin to regional business class for a flight under 4 hours, though this Honolulu flight would be 8 hours. Oh Asiana!
The good news again was the flight attendants, who were friendly and tried hard to please. They also spoke fluent English and just really did everything to make this a good flight.
There was champagne before take-off (but no nuts) and we found a slot in the busy Seoul runway traffic to leaveon time and make a long right turn to skim the North Korean border before heading out to Japan over the Pacific.
The food served was excellent this time - I chose the salmon appetizer and the sea bass. I thought both were good food and the preparation was excellent. We were almost over Japan when dinner service finished with a fruit and cheese platter (which I also really liked).
After that, the big shakedown happened; the plane kept bouncing for the next 3 hours, up and down, and everyone stayed in theirseats. Thankfullyit helped me fall asleep and despite the awful seat I spent the next 6 hours curled up, occasionally waking up from the turbulence and back pain.
There was a breakfast service which I slept through, but my travel companions stated that it was a big let-down compared to the dinner service and was barely edible.
Landing into Honolulu was windy but came with beautiful views of the island. The bus thattook us to theimmigration area came with a perfectly bossy attitude (welcome home everyone!) but immigration wasn't crowded and the staff were in a good mood there. I have to think back hard to remember those rude immigration agents from a few years ago - they have all become so nice suddenly.
Like that Asiana Business Class flight from Tashkent to Seoul , this was a flight I'd rather forget quickly. The flight attendants tried hard and dinner was pretty good, but the seat was terrible even when it was installed and now it's just old and tired. It's somewhat OK for a daytime flight, but downright terrible for a night flight. Lots of room for improvement for Asiana!
You can book your Asiana flight here.