I’m surprised not to find a master thread for VN, so let me add a quick trip report here. Had a pretty hilarious MUC-HAN-PQC. Booked a RT about 6 months prior for approx. €2200, nothing spectacular but decent considering the relative difficulty of getting to PQC.

The VN website is reasonably functional, so seat selection, online checkin etc all worked. Bag drop at the Sky Priority counter was painless, although the agent would only tag the bag to HAN. No visa check performed, not sure if it was an oversight because Germans don’t need one for up to 45 days, or perhaps the computer didn’t ask because of the PQC destination (which is visa free for 30 days for everyone). Lounge in T1B is decent, although very crowded from 10-11. MUC T1 is very cramped, and gate B17 makes for a very poor zone 1 boarding experience (have to push past the crowds in a very long corridor).

We boarded and settled into our seats on the 787. I will never understand the subtle differences between the various reverse herringbone products, but this one felt less comfortable than what I’m used to with AF/KL/CX. The seat feels cramped and a tad shorter (every cm matters if one’s 1.95m). FA offered to put on a cover (“padding”) minutes after boarding, but it’s flimsy and if anything made the experience worse, because it bunched up every time I moved. Welcome drink and top-offs offered.

A few minutes after the “ground staff leave aircraft” call, the pilot came on and announced that we would have to wait 90 minutes for deicing. Minutes later, the FAs came though and announced that they’d start serving lunch while parked at the gate. I immediately thought, wait, what?! Doesn’t sound like a good idea to rush through service if you have to be at the deicing stand in 90 minutes. That seemed to dawn on the FAs as well, because soon someone came through announcing that they’d only serve the main course, the rest would follow in the air. That memo didn’t seem to reach everyone, because shortly, the appetizer arrived:



For my main course, I had chosen the Beef fillet with peppercorn sauce, potatoes and ratatouille. What arrived was this:



Looks like in their rush, they accidentally heated up the stir fried noodles with beef tenderloin from the breakfast menu. Of course there was no point complaining, because there wouldn’t have been a way to rectify their error — returning the breakfast and heating up the correct meal would have meant the breakfast is thrown out (although with VN, who really knows?!), leaving no food for the second meal. With my meal, I asked for another glass of champagne. I was informed that it had already run out. Mind you, we hadn’t left the gate. I suspect VN only caters enough for welcome drinks? The FA offered a Riesling as alternative.

The Riesling arrived, and we started pushing back. The FAs didn’t seem worried, even offering refills while we were taxiing:



We arrived at the deicing stand, waited for some 20 minutes, and the pilot came on and announced that we’d be returning to the gate to have mechanics look at a technical problem. That took some 45 minutes, then we finally got deiced, and took off with 3 hour 40 minute delay. Once airborne, cheese, fruits and dessert were served. FAs walk through the aisles with trays. Somehow there was next to nothing left when they reached me in row 2, so I ate a sliver of Edamer with one cracker, accompanied by some mango and one strawberry, followed by a skimpy scoop of ice cream.

I soon reclined into the sleeping position, but couldn’t get comfortable. Movie selection is fairly mediocre, but I watched a couple Korean movies that were interesting. FAs came through and offered canapés from a tray (roastbeef, cheese, and something else that was no longer available when they got to my row). Not sure if more substantial (hot?) mid flight snacks would have been available.

Two hours before landing, lights came on. FAs came through with the menu again. That’s another oddity, they don’t give you your own menu to look at, you are shown it for a few seconds while the FA is standing next to you, ready to take your order. I told her that I’m pretty sure that I already had the breakfast beef noodles and asked if I could have my beef from the lunch menu. No sir, have to order from the breakfast menu. So I got the beef noodles again, only that this time the beef was completely overcooked. From row 3, people were served the lunch beef fillet with peppercorn sauce (with an apology).

We landed with a delay of 3h 20m, which I assume means most people missed their connections. Thankfully, I had received numerous schedule change emails over the past few months, pushing our originally scheduled layover of 2h 45m to 5h 30m. We thus had a fighting chance with a 2 hour layover. HAN can have awful immigration lines, and you have to reclaim your luggage and take a bus to the domestic terminal, and re-check, go through security again. Thankfully, we sailed through, and even had 35 minutes at the domestic lounge, which is the right amount of time there.

The domestic flight boarded on time and arrived PQC on the dot. Seating is domestic F style. I had read about huge differences between rows 1 and 2-4, but didn’t really notice anything unusual. Food was rather tasty, but no alcoholic drinks available except beer.



Gonna enjoy PQC for a couple weeks and then will see what VN has in store for the return…