Korean Air Skypass - Anyone else befuddled by KE Meal Timings?

I fly KE quite often between ICN and the US---ICN is a great connecting point, and, in general, I think KE is quite good. The (generally dreaded) angled-lie-flat seats are slightly less awful than some, the FA's are very professional, and Korean food generally lends itself well to the challenges of on-board reproduction.

That said, I have one MAJOR complaint....KE is the ONLY airline I have ever seen which keeps a meal schedule based on departure time-zone throughout the whole flight. Example: Leave ICN at ~10AM for ATL/DFW, etc....lunch is served just after departure (fine so far), and then, 8 hrs into the flight (5+ hrs left to go, mind you), lights on for Dinner! I flew JFK-ICN last week and witnessed the same thing: 12:50AM departure, light dinner served after departure, and, like clock-work, 8hrs later lights are on for "breakfast".

This flies in the face of what every frequent business traveler knows, which is that the best way to minimize jetlag is to orient yourself to arrival time. This is even more important if, as I do, you generally go straight to work after landing.

Is KE clueless to international standard practice, or is there something about the Korean market that dictates this?

This practice isn't any different than any other airlines.

This practice isn't any different than any other airlines.

Actually it is (I fly 600K+ miles per year, on 30-40 other airlines), so have a pretty good sense. The VAST majority of airlines would shift to arrival time zone after first meal service (e.g. late night departures from US-MidEast or India....dinner just after T/O, no meal service (other than mid-flight snacks available on demand) until 2hrs before landing (and that's usually dinner/lunch again, e.g. breakfast is skipped; e.g. SQ21 EWR-SIN....dinner just after T/O...no scheduled meal service for another 14 hrs or so, when B'fast is served 2-3 hrs before 5a arrival; e.g. QF/NZ/UA from LAX-AKL/SYD/MEL; e.g. All US carrier from Asia-US on mid-day departures.

You get the point. Believe me, KE is the ONLY airline I've found that does this

KE indeed has somewhat odd meal timings than others. For example, on night flights from Asia to Seoul, which depart around midnight and arrive around 6AM, KE offers breakfast right before landing, while Asiana and many other airliners offer late dinner right after take off. Which one is good? Obviously Asiana - after a dinner around 6-7PM, people are starving around midnight. Big problem is, cannot sleep well after meal. Well, cannot sleep in hungry, either.

I didn't notice longhaul's odd meal timings. We need a meal right before landing because no meals on connections (US domestic flights), and airport meals are expensive and ..... For the same reason, we need a meal right after taking off. If flight is long, light snack such as sandwich, bread, and noodle in the middle of 2 meals would be better, which is what many many airliners are doing, instead of early 2nd meal.

Not true. I flew JFK-ICN on Asiana (12:30 departure) and dinner was served 40 minutes out of JFK and breakfast somewhere over Japan.

I don't think it's a big deal.

I agree with the OP, and I think it's annoying. The flight times for ICN-ATL in particular are well-suited to having a "heavy lunch" after takeoff, followed by a good solid 8 hours of sleep, followed by a decent breakfast about two hours out of Atlanta. That sort of schedule would be consistent with the departure time, what you do on board, and the arrival time. But, no, instead of that, KE wakes you up over British Columbia to serve you dinner, then expects you to go back down for some more sleep before a morning arrival in Atlanta. (Same for other destinations, no doubt.) That's stupid.

It's my one significant beef with KE's service. I very much like KE in other respects, including the lie-flat-at-an-angle seats.

Is KE clueless to international standard practice, or is there something about the Korean market that dictates this?


Duty-free sales. Was once on KE's LAX-ICN overnight flight, and they served breakfast very early. Asked why they do this, and they said they have to do duty-free sales after that. No offense, but I understand that Koreans are freaking duty-free addicts, so I guess most of them are willing to wake up early to buy something.



You get the point. Believe me, KE is the ONLY airline I've found that does this


TG also does this on LAX-KIX flight. However I understand that their reason for doing this is to coordinate meal schedule with KIX-BKK continuation.

I did have a bit of a weird experience yesterday on the AKL-ICN dayflight, dinner being served a full three hours before arrival (16:30 Korean time). That's after a massive lunch an hour out of AKL and a constant supply of snacks.
Luckily, there were only 4 of us in the bubble, and the FA was happy to serve my meal 90 minutes later...

I don't think it's a big deal.

It's annoying when you are on a long flight and suddenly in the middle of the flight when you are trying to sleep or rest, lights come on and there is a lot of activity with serving food... especially in premium cabins.

By the way, bobbybrown, would you think that KE's meal plan for red-eye intra-asia flights as a mean to cost cutting strategy (breakfast cheaper than dinner meals)? :) ;)

By the way, bobbybrown, would you think that KE's meal plan for red-eye intra-asia flights as a mean to cost cutting strategy (breakfast cheaper than dinner meals)? :) ;)It's not unique to KE. The same goes for OZ, SQ etc.

If you have a look at their Service Sequence chart (http://flyasiana.com/service/article/article_schedule/images/table3.gif), you will note that OZ732 SGN-ICN, OZ738 Angkor Wat-ICN, OZ744 BKK-ICN, OZ748 HKT-ICN and OZ740 PNH-ICN all have only Breakfast service.

When OZ had a 0100-ish departure from SIN, that flight only had Breakfast service as well.

Most SQ short-ish night flights that depart around/after midnight also involves choosing between eating after take-off or eating before landing, i.e. only one meal served.