OP I feel your pain! Had two holds on KE54 (HNL-ICN) in early July which was downgraded from 748 to 777. Looks like the 748 is now flying from SFO and ATL to ICN now but we would have to push our flight back one day to snag a flight with availability for two (one less day on vacation in Asia, boo).

I know having read up on KE that they love to swap aircraft all the time but this seems like a much more broad shift than I was expecting. Does anyone have any insight as to how often large scale swaps like this happen on KE and how close in to travel date is considered “safe” to avoid these types of swaps (barring one-off equipment changes, etc.) - are these a quarterly occurrence, semiannual, something else?

This would be my first time on a 747 and I was understandable super excited, wanting to sit in the nose of the plane in 1A/J, etc. Had bought tickets on AS for SEA-OAK-HNL but looks like I’ll be putting that towards getting to SFO or ATL instead. But I can’t help but think it will happen again and the HNL flight will switch back to a 748 (or it will switch from ATL/SFO to somewhere else). Have also debated just flying LAX-ICN on the A380 and calling it a day and trying to snag seats on a 747 another time (A380 would also be a first for me, though I will be flying in Etihad’s First Apartment two weeks later).

Any insight/thoughts would be appreciated.