The crew on board were excellent . They were very attentive. My complaint is food service. This is my first time on Korean Air. The trip was from Washington D.C. to Seoul, over 15 hours due to strong headwinds. The meal was served within the first two hours of the trip. There was well more than 8 hours to the next meal. We were served some tiny brownies or warm tea roll. I asked if I could have one of each. I was told, "Only one." I am not a big eater nor am I overweight but really, I was so hungry on that flight. I have flown many times on long hauls to Africa, Philippines, and Guam and never had there been such a long flight with so little to nibble on. The tickets are very expensive. It seems that food would be a little more accessible. Thank you for listening.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
I booked business class ticket for myself and engineer to Shanghai from LAX. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law passed away 4 days prior to the trip. The funeral was scheduled for the departure day. I requested Korean Air to let my engineer fly on the booked date and move my flight back one day as there were seats available on the flights. I was told my engineer could not fly without me since I paid for the tickets. I was then told we could both move our flights one day for the fare difference of over 5,000 dollars. I then asked to cancel the flights, but could only do this with a 600 dollar cancellation charge for the 2 tickets. I was then told that my cancellation fee could be waived with proof of death but my engineer's fee could not be waived.
So the bottom line is they wouldn't let him fly and charge a cancellation fee because he couldn't fly. How does this make sense? I sent the local newspaper notification of death but that wasn't good enough to prove I wasn't lying to them. I ended up flying out a day after the funeral on a different airline and had a 3-hour layover in Seoul, so I thought surely the Korean Air office can work this out. I took with me a copy of the Death Certificate and the funeral announcement showing my wife as surviving daughter and myself as her husband.
In Korea, I was told that the Korean Air policy is to give no waiver of fee even for members of the family. I showed them the letter from the US Consumer Relations department of Korean Air stating that I would get refund if I showed the Death Certificate. I was then told that this would take a lot of paperwork and I would have to go outside of the airport to do this. I was then told that the Death Certificate and funeral announcement was not enough proof and I must also show my marriage certificate!
I have now sent the Death Certificate and Marriage License to the Korean Air US office. I have been told I will have the airline ticket refunded to my credit card minus the cancellation fee for my engineer. I flew 220,000 miles last year and others flying with me have flown similar distances. I flew Korean Air earlier in the year and the flight attendants were very competent and the planes were clean and well organized. I decided to give Korean Air an opportunity to earn our business. They blew it!
Korean Airlines is a complete rip off and an insensitive organization. My wife purchased a roundtrip ticket to visit her family in the Philippines. Unfortunately while she was there, four days before her return to NY/JFK, her mother suddenly passed away. As she needed to stay for her mother's funeral, which in the Philippines, requires a stay of eight days before the burial, then a mourning period after, she needed to postpone her flight.
She attempted to rebook her return flight, but found she could only be confirmed from Manila to Seoul, Korea and the flight was full from Seoul to NY or Newark "for the tickets that she had purchased" until September 2010. Miraculously, if we came up with an additional $2900, they could get her a seat on a flight. I consider this to be extortion on behalf of Korean Airlines. We have booked her a flight on Delta, where I learned that in the above situation, airlines are supposed to enact Rule 240 and book her on another airline to get her home due to her change in plans being from an unavoidable emergency and tragedy.
Korean Airlines would not even hear of trying to book her on a different airline. While asking for money back on the flight would be minimal compensation, other people should be warned of Korean Airlines fraudulent activities.
I recently purchased a ticket from Korean Air to travel from JFK to Seoul, South Korea. The reservation code is EECQZR. After making the reservation, the swine flu epidemic has become much worse (4 deaths) and is worsening. I deliberated over the situation for some time and decided the only sensible thing to do was to cancel my trip.
I called 3 times to try to cancel the reservation and spoke with a supervisor named Cho Sun Heo. After speaking with her, she said "When you bought the ticket, you were aware that the swine flu issues in South Korea. We will waive the fee if you obtain a doctors note stating that you have or may have the swine flu."
So in other words, the fee can be waived by the airline if it benefits them, but they refuse to waive the fee to protect my health. I'm a 55 year old woman and I feel the risk is too great for me to be exposed to the epidemic. I feel that the airline's policy is extremely unfair and self serving. Under the circumstances I'm asking KAL to allow me to use my ticket for travel at a later date or refund my money without a penalty.
This is not fair and I will fight this. I'll send my complaint to the Better Business Bureau, the DOT's Aviation Consumer Protection Division (ACPD), Consumer Affairs, and local TV stations, etc. I'm a valued customer. I don't think this is the manner in which I should be treated. Please review my case and respond back as soon as possible.
We called to redeem our family's plan mileage for the round trips to Vietnam on 09/17/2007. But the customer services tried to avoid to award our redeeming by saying that we can not claim my grandchilds' mileage for my award because they are not in my family side (they indicate my grandchildren are not ours as they said, this is wrong). And this is not what they said in the policy when we applied for my family plan.
They also tried to avoid the award by increasing the mileage required for the award ticket. As before, they required only 45,000 miles for the round trip to Vietnam, now they told us that we need to have 85,000 miles for this award. And this increasing is not the same, 65,000 miles, as when we called in June-2007. I think, they do not hornor their services by increasing the number of mileage (3 times) by each time we called, so we will never have a chance to claim for my award.
They also did not want to deal with this situation while I was on the phone. They put me on hold for more than 30 minutes. They were not nice and tried to get away with this situation.
They do not honor for their services and with their clients.
