Asiana Club - Newbie somewhat disapointed wz OZ in D: Needs expert advice

Hello everyone. Please be patient with my poor English.
First of all, I would like to say thank you to this forum. Although I am an infrequent flyer, I have enjoyed very much with this site. Congratulation to you all ^
I usually fly with SQ, but this time I have decided to fly with OZ after having studied many topics in here & was really looking forward to it. But as it turned out to be quite disappointing experience. The major reasons are;
My flight was SYD/ICN/FUK rtn.
1. When I booked my flight two months in advance, I have requested accommodation for involuntary stop over at ICN (ICN/FUK sector). Despite of having contacted with SYD sales office several times, the day before my flight I was told that OZ had not found the hotel yet, but OZ would find a hotel in somewhere safe place (quality of hotel, location, etc). That time, it made me quite nervous. Well, the hotel was all right, but I was not quite sure if it was necessary thing to be told.
2. SYD/ICN - I understood they did not have AVOD in this sector. I have watched two films but both sound was cut off for roughly 5 seconds every 30 seconds. May be because the tapes were worn out?
3. FUK/ICN - there were 4 out of 8 passengers in Bz. After being handed out the lunch menu I was told that I had no choice to choose from menu but to accept what they would feed me. It was only 1 hour flight, so not a big deal. But, why they handed out the menu by telling me that I had no choice?
4. (1) ICN/SYD - Again, IFE. Due to technical problems, there were only 2 movies available. Which did not bother me until I found out that the sound was a mixture of Korean from left & English from right.
(2) The flight were almost occupied with Korean passengers, which was fine by me, I thought. One stage, two FAs decided to have a chat with a passenger sitting next to me across the aisle which meant they blocked my access to the aisle. When I asked them politely to clear the way as I needed to go to the lab, they simply looked back at me with blank eyes. I have asked them twice but they did not move. So I had no choice but to clime the seat to get off. Fortunately I was sitting in 4H so I did not disturb other passengers by doing so.
As a whole experience I was not happy at all, especially considering the fact that I have paid AUD400 more compare to SQ. Despite of the hard product, I have found that FAs were more robotic than SQ.
Very sorry for such a long post as a newbie.
I am just wondering what I have done wrong/missed this time. Any criticism would be highly appreciated as I am still learning a lot of things.

Cheer,
sushiinSyd

It sounds like a dreadful trip compared to the glowing reviews of SQ. I hope my trip doesnt turn out the same, but for sure I will have plenty of movies downloaded on my laptop lol.

Welcome to FT and the friendly OZ forum, sushiinSyd!

Sad to hear that you had a less than satisfactory experience. Normally SYD-ICN vv is route with lousy hardware but excellent service. And even with the worst of the 777s the IFE usually works fine. So having both long hauls so bad is a real disappointment.
Personally, I would write to OZ and complain about this. Not working IFE on both sectors is a reason for a partial refund. Also at the fare level you have paid I would have most probably chosen a different airline.

Tell them about the experience!

And yes - ICN-SYD is a 'tourist' route that may be operated by non-AVOD aircraft.

It sounds like a dreadful trip compared to the glowing reviews of SQ. I hope my trip doesnt turn out the same, but for sure I will have plenty of movies downloaded on my laptop lol.
finite7777: As long as your flight is not one of those sectors, I am quite sure that you would not experience as such.

Welcome to FT and the friendly OZ forum, sushiinSyd!

Sad to hear that you had a less than satisfactory experience. Normally SYD-ICN vv is route with lousy hardware but excellent service. And even with the worst of the 777s the IFE usually works fine. So having both long hauls so bad is a real disappointment.
Personally, I would write to OZ and complain about this. Not working IFE on both sectors is a reason for a partial refund. Also at the fare level you have paid I would have most probably chosen a different airline.
DownUnderFlyer: Thank you for welcoming.
It may sound strange, I am not angry but just disappointed.

Tell them about the experience!

And yes - ICN-SYD is a 'tourist' route that may be operated by non-AVOD aircraft.
TPJ: Yes, I was aware of that since I have studied many posts here. Still I did not think it would be this bad...

I thought I was well prepared for the poor quality of hard product, but was expecting excellent soft product from them. Probably the reason why I was so disappointed was the way FAs treated me particularly compare to Korean passengers.
I simply wanted find another airline which could match against SQ so I took a kind of risk this time. Maybe I should have tried TG as their fare is AUD1,500 cheaper.
I did not mean to criticize OZ, but I thought if I posted my experience to this forum, some might tell me a different point of view.

Once again, I really do appreciate three of yours reply. Thank you very much.

(2) The flight were almost occupied with Korean passengers, which was fine by me, I thought. One stage, two FAs decided to have a chat with a passenger sitting next to me across the aisle which meant they blocked my access to the aisle. When I asked them politely to clear the way as I needed to go to the lab, they simply looked back at me with blank eyes. I have asked them twice but they did not move. So I had no choice but to clime the seat to get off. Fortunately I was sitting in 4H so I did not disturb other passengers by doing so.

I find this quite surprising and have never experienced anything like this nor seen any OZ FA's who I'd ever expect to act like this. So I'm wondering if perhaps there was a communication problem and they didn't understand what you were saying. For example, you said "lab", which obviously meant "lav" being short for lavatory. Well, I've never heard a Korean refer to the toilet as "lab", "lav", or "lavatory". So if you said something like "I need to go to the lab", they probably didn't have a clue as to what you were saying. And if said in an accent different from what they were used to, they would have even more difficulty beyond not understanding what a "lab" was.

Unfortunately, on average, English isn't one of the OZ FA's strong points. Some do speak English very well. But with others communication can be a problem. In my experience, FA's who chat with Koreans and little or none with foreigners are typically the ones who's English is poor and they feel uncomfortable talking with foreigners more than the basic required, out of fear of not understanding what is being said.

Anyways, if you should ever find yourself in that situation again, I'd recommend saying you need to use the "toilet" or "restroom". Among Koreans "toilet" is the most commonly used word but "restroom" is normally understood as well. Or if you want to use the Korean word, you should say "hwa jang shil". And whenever you feel communication is a problem, don't be afraid to "dumb down" your conversation. For example, rather than saying, "Excuse me, I need to use the toilet", just saying "toilet" is sufficient and wouldn't be considered being rude or anything like that.

For that matter, Koreans commonly don't say "excuse me" or "pardon me" if they need to go someplace and someone's in the way. They simply push on through and it's not really considered rude. Or if you accidentally bump someone, saying "sorry" isn't always necessary. Crowded buses, subways, and other public areas are common in Korea and I guess they've just adopted the notion that it's unavoidable to need to push your way through, and don't really think anything of it. So in this case, simply getting up and pushing through the FA's who were blocking you would likely have been acceptable. Though I understand if it's considered rude by you and your culture and you didn't want to do something like that.

A_Lee wrote:For example, you said "lab", which obviously meant "lav" being short for lavatory.

For example, rather than saying, "Excuse me, I need to use the toilet", just saying "toilet" is sufficient and wouldn't be considered being rude or anything like that.

For that matter, Koreans commonly don't say "excuse me" or "pardon me" if they need to go someplace and someone's in the way.


Thank you for the tip.
I actually found that I typed "lab" instead of "lav" after posting. It was a simple typo :p Thank you for notifying me anyway ;)

What I said to FAs was exactly as you stated "Excuse me, I need to use the toilet". As FAs always addressed to me starting with "excuse me sir", I simply started saying with "excuse me". This is very interesting that you seem to have read my mind in a way because after that I said to myself that it would have been better if I had said simply "toilet".

The funny thing is that, I tend to think particularly Korean and Japanese have a lot of similarities in regards to the public manner.

Anyway, thank you very much for your advice as it is very useful tip to know in every day's life.

Cheers,