Asiana Airlines
ICN-DPS (Seoul Incheon Airport – Denpasar Ngurah Rai International Airport)
OZ 763 – Business Class (I)
July 19, 2015
Booked: Boeing 767-300
Flown: Boeing 767-300

We left the lounge and arrived to gate at T-30 just as the priority board was finishing. There was a large economy line with proper segregation and line management. As a result, we were able to get on really quickly in the business class area. My son was intrigued by the fact that we were headed to “Dispenser” (Denpasar).



There was single door boarding today. As a result, there was a stream of people through bus on the economy side. We also happened to be flying on the Asiana Star Alliance livery plane.



The Boeing 767 business cabin was a small 3 row business cabin in a 2-1-2 configuration. It's a pretty odd configuration and I can't think of any other carrier that does it. With the three of us, I took my son in the aisle seats and MrsWT73 took the sole center seat. The plane was outfitted with angle flat seats that were probably state of the art about 20 years ago.











There was a pre departure beverage offered of water, sparkling or orange juice. Indonesian Immigration cards were immediately passed out. My son opted for orange juice, while MrsWT73 and I had sparkling.





The flight track took us away from the usual coastal routes up and down the heavily tracked east coast of Asia, out over the Philippines and down over Borneo into Bali.



My son immediately located the game feature on the in flight entertainment and proceeded to attempt to set some new high scores. It was a strange snake egg shooting type of game that involved destroying the jewels prior to the serpentine getting to the centre. A nice sunset outside through the old school B767 square windows. . .



A first for me, there was a health and caution about sexual harassment announcement for flight crew. There was no mention about any volcano issues from the flight crew so we kept our fingers crossed and hoped that Mt Ruang wouldn’t cause any additional havoc. Our same flight, per flight tracker, just 2 frequencies ago, diverted in the last hour of flight to Jakarta. I hoped that we would not have the same result.

Menus were distributed. As with other medium haul Asiana Airlines flights, no amenity kits were offered. Slippers were provided.







A decent wine list for the Asian medium haul flight. One champagne, two whites, three reds and a port and ice wine offering.









We lost our departure slot and had to wait on the ground for about 20 minutes. Once we had climbed to altitude, it took forever to get comfortable in these seats. It was a pretty stark comparison from the state of the art Asiana A380 seats on our last leg. I am sorry to report that the seats were not really comfortable for lounging, or sleeping.

The in flight entertainment was pretty tired. There were about only about 8 hollywood movies in the catalogue with nothing but NCIS to watch on TV for others. Asiana really falls down compared to its competitors here.

As the flight got underway, dinner service was offered. Taking a closer look at the menus, there were different wines offered than on our last flight, although the beef tenderloin western menu offering was still present on the menu. The starter was the lobster with white balsamic pearls.





I was feeling a bit boring today and went with another beef tenderloin.



This was concluded with some pleasant vanilla Haagen Dazs for the dessert. I skipped the cheese offering.



I dozed off and slept a bit. My son also crashed out quickly. Asiana had loaded chicken nuggets as a child meal but he didn’t ended up not having any despite my efforts as a parent to keep his stomach full while travelling.

Thankfully, we had a straight in arrival with a round and about descent into the newer Nguarh Rai International Airport at Bali and we were off without any issues. It seemed that we had a bit of a break in the ash. Indeed, no flight announcements or any deviations from the flight plan and we were safely on the ground.





A long walk from our arrival gate in the new Nguarah Rai airport though a space that didn’t have any personality, which was surprising for a new airport designed for tourist arrivals. The halls were punctuated with some very short moving sidewalks.





There was some banner advertising for visa fee entry for citizens of 26 new countries but the Indonesian consulate and website wasn’t updated in Vancouver prior to our departure so we went with getting a visa in advance. For what it was worth, there was no line at the Visa On Arrival counter at our arrival time at 1 AM.

The bags took forever to come out and of course we had an X ray exam before leaving the building. There were heaps of Jetstar flights that had arrived from all areas of Australia filled with college aged kids and their friends. In true Indonesian style, the bags came out on a belt at the opposite end of the baggage hall without any sign or display posting. My son, who was running around the baggage hall, checking all the belts, happened to spot our bags. The bags were on belt 6. He had the pleasure of hauling off the first of our bags as they turned up on the claim belt. A quick check for baggage chalk (the Indonesian authorities used to chalk bags when contraband was suspected in it) and with comfort that there were none on ours, we were headed for the exit without any unnecessary issues.



We went through what we initially thought was a duty fee outlet before heading to the public side but it was after customs control so it was likely high street pricing. Wine here was $30, which was fairly priced compared to resort pricing. We stocked up on some water and Pocohari Sweat Ion drink to take to the hotel.



Asiana Airlines was an interesting way to get to Bali from the Americas. At the time of writing, they offered 2X weekly service from Seoul Incheon. It was terrific as if you were redeeming on Star Alliance, it saved you from having to route through Singapore or Bangkok. It was pretty easy to find reward space and the flight times were aligned to easily connect from North America (unlike the Singapore Airlines times which are terrible for connecting). The downside is that the product is quite dated with the seats being very uncomfortable, especially after coming off their flagship A380 aircraft. Ultimately, the savings in time is probably worth the discomfort. The LifeMiles ticket worked great, although we didn’t have to have any interactions with any humans in order to change the ticket. I can’t say that I would rely on their offerings all the time as a result of their funky IT issues.