Korean air safe to fly with?
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Korean air safe to fly with?
I have a wedding to go to in a couple of weeks, and Korean is the cheapest ticket by a formidable margin.
Heard lots of rumours and was wondering how much is fact and how much is fiction. Anyone know how safe they are to fly with?
Would you fly them, let your mother fly them?
Thanks,
NZ
Heard lots of rumours and was wondering how much is fact and how much is fiction. Anyone know how safe they are to fly with?
Would you fly them, let your mother fly them?
Thanks,
NZ
Join Date: Mar 2004
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IMO:
Iīve done the AKL - UK trip a number of times and just about everytime with different carriers and always in Y. Hereīs a breakdown of my impressions:
Cathay : Horrible. A pot noodle as the main meal with what I found to be very cramped seating at the back of the 340īs.
Garuda: probably not an option at the moment but probably one of the best trips. Loads of delays due to US Ac. In flight eng shutdown on the old DC-10. 747 ceiling panels falling down on take off and landing. In all a 2 day trip took 5 days.... If you have plenty of time and are flexible you get a few additional stopovers.
QF & BA: IMO canīt beat the Y product of BA. QF on the other hand left a lot to be desired. Ok it was 2 years ago but it felt like the 80īs with a snack bag instead of a meal and no PTVīs.
Korean: Not the best not the worst. Safety side of things appears to have improved no end after the technical advice given by Delta (?). Iīd not even consider the safety issue when booking a ticket with them.
SQ: Probably the closest to BA in terms of quality and service. If the price was close Iīd choose SQ only to avoid the hassles of entering the US at LAX.
JAL: Great. Limited English programming but great food and a lot of emphasis on service.
Best trip ever was with CO when they still served AKL after a 1 nite stop over in HNL. Shame they didnīt carry on with the route....
Hope that helps in some way. If you need anymore assurance I work in Ac maintenance and am resposible for a european based 6 ac fleet of widebodies and would fly Korean.
Iīve done the AKL - UK trip a number of times and just about everytime with different carriers and always in Y. Hereīs a breakdown of my impressions:
Cathay : Horrible. A pot noodle as the main meal with what I found to be very cramped seating at the back of the 340īs.
Garuda: probably not an option at the moment but probably one of the best trips. Loads of delays due to US Ac. In flight eng shutdown on the old DC-10. 747 ceiling panels falling down on take off and landing. In all a 2 day trip took 5 days.... If you have plenty of time and are flexible you get a few additional stopovers.
QF & BA: IMO canīt beat the Y product of BA. QF on the other hand left a lot to be desired. Ok it was 2 years ago but it felt like the 80īs with a snack bag instead of a meal and no PTVīs.
Korean: Not the best not the worst. Safety side of things appears to have improved no end after the technical advice given by Delta (?). Iīd not even consider the safety issue when booking a ticket with them.
SQ: Probably the closest to BA in terms of quality and service. If the price was close Iīd choose SQ only to avoid the hassles of entering the US at LAX.
JAL: Great. Limited English programming but great food and a lot of emphasis on service.
Best trip ever was with CO when they still served AKL after a 1 nite stop over in HNL. Shame they didnīt carry on with the route....
Hope that helps in some way. If you need anymore assurance I work in Ac maintenance and am resposible for a european based 6 ac fleet of widebodies and would fly Korean.
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Good Question. One annoying thing that I see here in the UK is when considering which airline to fly with everyone automatically assumes that they are all equally safe. This is not neccessarily true. Korean had a poor safety record in no small part due to what we would call poor CRM. (I apologise if I am teaching you to suk eggs here). CRM - Crew Resource Management is how we try to make sure the whole crew of the aircraft operation use their combined resources to improve the safety. (By crew I include all those involved - Flight Deck, Cabin, ATC, Despatcher, Refueller etc). An example for us in the flight deck might be after a long night flight on final approach the non handling pilot asking the handling pilot if "wouldnt landing gear be a good idea?" when he has forgotten. Sounds silly but people do make mistakes and how you handle it with interpersonal skills has a crucial effect on the operation.
Now why I have gone into this. As far as I know Korean is still mainly crewed with ex military pilots from a VERY authoritarian class structure. It is very unlikly anyone would question the Captain, even if they know he is wrong. They managed to crash a 747 cargo in the UK because of just that when the Captains instruments malfunctioned and the First Officer didn't tell him.
In the UK this was also a problem and for the last 20+ years we have worked very hard on removing this, some airlines more than others. The fact our society structure has changed has helped to. Whether the Koreans have managed it I don't know. But it is something you cant change overnight.
Further reading:
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/s...rch=korean+747
Sorry if it puts you off but you did ask.
Now why I have gone into this. As far as I know Korean is still mainly crewed with ex military pilots from a VERY authoritarian class structure. It is very unlikly anyone would question the Captain, even if they know he is wrong. They managed to crash a 747 cargo in the UK because of just that when the Captains instruments malfunctioned and the First Officer didn't tell him.
In the UK this was also a problem and for the last 20+ years we have worked very hard on removing this, some airlines more than others. The fact our society structure has changed has helped to. Whether the Koreans have managed it I don't know. But it is something you cant change overnight.
Further reading:
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/s...rch=korean+747
Sorry if it puts you off but you did ask.
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Cruise Alt,
It may be a fallacy to say all airlines are equally safe, but it is an equal fallacy to use published fatality statistics, as air accidents are such a rare occurence, and there are often too few of them to make "statistically significant" comparisons.
When questioning air safety, I would use the cliche that the drive to the airport (or in some cases the walk across the road on the way to the station / bus stop etc) is the most dangerous part of the journey. Mile for mile, IIRC, flying is 164x safer than driving, despite the UK having some of the safest roads in the world. Our fatality rates for pedestrians and cyclists still leave a lot to be desired.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of all the "your safety is our top priority" patronising comments airlines and rail companies like to chunder out these days. I would consider any of the factors anguspm mentions below long above safety record any time, unless I was going to chuck myself out of the plane in a parachute, or take part in some other kind of genuinely dangerous pursuit.
It may be a fallacy to say all airlines are equally safe, but it is an equal fallacy to use published fatality statistics, as air accidents are such a rare occurence, and there are often too few of them to make "statistically significant" comparisons.
When questioning air safety, I would use the cliche that the drive to the airport (or in some cases the walk across the road on the way to the station / bus stop etc) is the most dangerous part of the journey. Mile for mile, IIRC, flying is 164x safer than driving, despite the UK having some of the safest roads in the world. Our fatality rates for pedestrians and cyclists still leave a lot to be desired.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of all the "your safety is our top priority" patronising comments airlines and rail companies like to chunder out these days. I would consider any of the factors anguspm mentions below long above safety record any time, unless I was going to chuck myself out of the plane in a parachute, or take part in some other kind of genuinely dangerous pursuit.
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Thanks for all the replies and PMs.
I have booked with Korean. I would love to support my national carrier, but when they are charging more than twice the amount, I can't justify it.
nz
I have booked with Korean. I would love to support my national carrier, but when they are charging more than twice the amount, I can't justify it.
nz
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I think looking at all Koreans crashes would be more apt than just of one type....
The stats go from 5 747s since 1980, to 11 heavy jets since the same time
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/s...?search=korean
The stats go from 5 747s since 1980, to 11 heavy jets since the same time
http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/s...?search=korean
