Asiana Airlines – Gwangju to Seoul Gimpo (1 of 6)

Over the Christmas period, I completed 6 flights. I had to get from Gwangju in South Korea to London Heathrow and then all the way back again. Here is the first of six trip reports. Gwangju to Seoul Gimpo with Asiana Airlines.

Saturday 23rd December 2006
Asiana Airlines OZ8704
Gwangju (KWJ) to Seoul-Gimpo (GMP)
Boeing 737-500, HL7250

Having been told that Asiana has a reputation for canceling it’s early morning services, I felt it necessary to change my booking for 7:30am on Sunday 24th December. After all, a cancellation would have disastrous consequences, especially considering that I had an onward flight from Seoul to Amsterdam that afternoon.

My booking for this Asiana flight was made with Expedia, so when I called and asked to change my flight to the previous afternoon, I expected to be charged a ridiculous sum of money for the privilege. The person I spoke to had to be put me on hold whilst he “checked the change and cancellation policy”. A little while later, he returned with some great news. Asiana were not going to charge me to change my flight. I had initially booked onto flight OZ8700 on Christmas Eve, but was now flying on OZ8704 on 23rd December. The flight cost 72 pounds return, so it was by no means cheap.

I arrived at the tiny Gwangju Airport (my local) at around 11:30am, with plenty of time to check-in for my 12:40pm flight up to Seoul. Gwangju Airport is primarily a domestic airport, although there are 9 scheduled flights per week to Shanghai (twice weekly with Korean Air and daily with China Eastern) plus occasional charters to Hong Kong with Hong Kong Airlines. There are many domestic flights every day, although the airport closes just after the last arriving flight at 9:30pm.

Check-in at Gwangju is a really swift process and there were about 10 counters for Korean Air and another 10 or so for Asiana. Queues for Asiana Airlines were non-existent, so I strolled right up to the counter. I was quickly presented with my boarding card (a shop-style receipt) and was assigned seat 15F on the Boeing 737-500 (incidentally.. this was a totally new aircraft type for me). The baggage screening takes place as soon as you check in and you can’t go until the check-in agent has confirmation that your suitcase isn’t loaded with explosives. There was a problem with my case and I was asked to go to their baggage screening room so my bag could be inspected. The problem was that I had aerosols. After learning that there was nothing to worry about, they re-packed my bag and sent it on it’s way.

I went upstairs to departures. Like so many small airports in Korea, you have to stay landside until your flight is ready for boarding, simply because the tiny departure area cannot accommodate more than a handful of passengers. On the departures board, the time of my flight had changed to 1:00pm, and by 12:30pm, the flight was showing as “Processing”, so all passengers for the flight must clear security and wait at the gate.

As I sat at the gate, I looked out onto the apron. I spotted our aircraft (the only 735 there at the time) and it was on a remote stand. To my surprise, the 737 was in Asiana’s brand new colour scheme, and it was looking great. Boarding started rather suddenly, and we walked down some stairs, through some doors and we were on the tar-mac, walking towards the aircraft. I spotted two passengers carrying their dogs in Asiana-branded boxes. It seems that the airline is happy for smaller pets to be carried in the passenger cabin.

As I climbed the stairs, I was greeted by two members of crew, one of which was dressed in a rather festive Father Christmas outfit. They were very friendly and their English was impeccable. I walked towards my seat and looked around to see that the cabin had been nicely decorated for Christmas with a Christmas reef at the front and the rear of the aircraft.

The load for today’s flight was about 70% and the E-seat next to me was not occupied. Announcements were made in both Korean and English and it seemed that only I was benefiting from English announcements. There appeared to be no other non-Koreans on the flight. Apologies were made for the delay, the doors were closed and we soon pushed back and began the taxi to the runway, just as a very late China Eastern A321 taxied in from Shanghai. We were also given a flight time of 40 minutes.

As we got to the runway, we had to hold for about 15 minutes, although no reason for this further delay was given. Soon enough, the small 737 was rattling down the runway and then climbing away from Gwangju. The views over the city on such a sunny day were very impressive.

We reached 21,000ft, by which time the crew had commenced the inflight service. Inflight service on Asiana’s domestic services is very basic, consisting of only a drink, but newspapers are also offered. I was very surprised to see that one member of crew had a handful of English newspapers.

Almost as soon as the drinks round was complete, the crew returned to the front of the cabin and started to collect the empty cups. Shortly afterwards, the captain announced that our descent into Seoul’s Gimpo Airport was under way.

We had more great views over the local area whilst on approach and soon touched down in Seoul, after less than 40 minutes in the air.

Our aircraft reached the gate in no time at all and within seconds, the door was opened and we were in the terminal. The walk to baggage reclaim took about 5 minutes, by which time, our baggage was already spinning around on the carousel. In less than 10 minutes, I’d got from the aircraft to the airport bus station.

I had to transfer to Incheon Airport about 40 minutes away, regularly served by limousine buses. I was booked into an airport hotel that night, before my KLM flight the following day.