Tonight, we’re returning to the West Coast on a long-haul veteran of Asiana Airlines, the Boeing 777-200ER. As the oldest widebody type in the fleet, the 777 has been connecting Seoul to the world since the late early 2000s, even as more modern types have entered the OZ fleet. Currently, the airline operates 9 of the jets, with a further 3 returned to their lessors and 1 written off as OZ214 in a crash at SFO. With the 777-200ER an increasingly endangered species in East Asia, with only All Nippon Airways, Jin Air, and Thai Airways continuing to operate the type in addition to Asiana, flying on one of these is a rare treat.
Server: Solo
Airline: Asiana Airlines
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200ER
Origin: Incheon International Airport, Jung-gu, South Korea (ICN)
Destination: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, SeaTac, Washington (SEA)
Flight Number: OZ272
Route: RKSI-KSEA
Seat: 4A (Business)
Time En Route: 9 Hours 33 Minutes
Waiting to board our aircraft at the gate we arrived at. Our aircraft today is a 20-year-old 777-200ER, registered as HL7739. The actual HL7739 has been parked at ICN since January of this year, and her future remains uncertain.
Starting our pushback from Terminal 1 with a company A321neo parked beside us after arriving a couple hours ago from SGN. The first impression of our seating accommodations is excellent. Even though it’s obviously an older seat, it’s well-padded and a full lie-flat bed when reclined. Furthermore, it seems to be immaculately kept overall, displaying a cleanliness that stands up to close scrutiny. However, color palette-wise, it suffers from the same beige and gray affliction that plagued top-flight Asian carriers in the 2000s, with JAL’s first class from the time showing similar symptoms. Maybe it was a fad of the era, like shag carpet and pastel colors were to the 1970s (check out color pictures of 747 upper decks from the time).
Got a quick taxi to the runway this evening, with Incheon Tower peeking over the Midfield terminal in the background
Taking off with a great view of Terminal 2 and the sea of Korean Air and SkyTeam widebodies parked there
Dinner is served once we level off over the Sea of Japan. As usual, Asiana offers us a wide variety of Korean and Western dining options here in business class, with our main course being the beef tenderloin steak, served with demiglace sauce, ducchess potatoes, and asparagus, along with a cheese dish of Danish blue cheese and a slice of blueberry cheesecake for dessert. The food ended up being a 10/10 and, once dinner was over, we’re going to get some sleep.
Waking up over the Aleutian Islands. We’re having a relatively plain breakfast this morning with coffee, owing to how filling last night’s dinner was. Sleeping was no problem, owing to how comfy our lie-flat seat was, in addition to the warm blanket and soft pillow generously provided to us.
Got a great view of the Cascades in our final descent into SeaTac. From left to right: Mount Baker, Mount Shuksan, and Glacier Peak. Baker and Glacier Peak are both stratovolcanoes, while Shuksan is a glaciated massif.
Landing on the far west side of the field in Seattle. It’s not raining for once here this time of year!
Pulling over to the International Satellite Terminal, which handles all long-haul flights in and out of SEA
Deplaned at the Satellite. Flying on the OZ Bigfoot was a wonderful experience and we’d recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to do so.
ermm this is inaccurate… Im just playing, great photos and great post!