HKG_Flyer1

As of April 1, KE has pulled substantially all of their first class seats out of the inventory available for SkyTeam ticket redemption. On the following routes, pax holding F class award tickets will be refused accommodation in the forward cabin, and will instead be assigned a seat in the business class section.

Affected routes appear to be those between Seoul and the following points:

Atlanta
Auckland
Bangkok
Beijing
Brisbane
Cairo
Chicago
DFW
Dubai
F_u_kuoka
Ho Chi Minh
Hong Kong
Honolulu
Jakarta
Kagoshima
Kuala Lumpur
Manila
Milan
Moscow
Mumbai
Nadi
Okayama
Osaka (ban in effect for 2 of the 3 daily flights)
Prague
Rome
San Francisco
Sapporo
Sendai
Shanghai
Shenyang
Singapore
Sydney
Tianjin
Toronto
Vancouver
Zurich

In addition, F class reward ticket holders will be downgraded on the following non-hub routes:

Los Angeles – Tokyo
Pusan – Fukuoka
Pusan - Nagoya
Pusan – Osaka
Pusan – Tokyo
Cheju – Nagoya
Cheju – Osaka
Cheju – Tokyo

ozstamps

That is TERRIBLE for folks already award ticketed!

HKG_Flyer1

In other words, terrible for me! No, it wasn't fun sitting in the old-timey style KE business class seat in a fully booked cabin for my DFW-ICN, ICN-CGK, and CGK-ICN flights. I had stupidly thought that when the forward cabins were rebranded from first to business plus, my first award ticket would entitle me to sit in business plus (since it was still the same cabin and KE was actually downgrading the level of service provided). Instead, it looks like they were somehow able to use this as an excuse to simultaneously pull all of these seats out of the SkyTeam award program.