Jeju Air

The first time I flew to Jeju was with Asiana Airlines, thanks to a booking done by my tour agency (Chan Brothers).

The second time, we were travelling on our own from Seoul to Jeju. There are two ways of doing this: the first is via ferry (which would take about 5 hours), and the second via plane (1 hour). We opted for the latter, and decided to take a budget airline because, well, we didn’t really see the point in flying Korean Air or Asiana for a short flight.

Booking was done online via the website, although you can also do it on the app because it’s pretty convenient. I paid about 150,000 won for flights on Friday morning and Sunday morning – quite decent, considering that I only booked it one month before and it was the vacation season, meaning that lots of locals were holidaying in Jeju as well.

Long story short, we thought we were going to miss our flight to Jeju because we went to the terminal for international flights instead. Luckily, for domestic flights, you only need to enter the gate 5 minutes before it closes, so we made it on time!

I’m not sure if Korean citizens need to produce their passports, but it’s a definite must for international tourists, so don’t forget to bring it along!

The flight was about an hour long. While we weren’t served any food, they did serve us water, which was very nice of them. It’s budget and just a short flight, so I wasn’t really expecting food anyway.

Another thing I noted was the ample leg room. Some airlines think that you are midgets whose legs don’t touch the floor at all… thankfully, Jeju Air didn’t cramp us up in a tiny space.

Our flight back to Seoul was also not completely free of drama. For some unknown reason, our flight kept getting delayed and I think we ended up waiting more than one hour. That’s not too bad, but when we were finally allowed to board the plane, this sight greeted us:

Other than the time I took Druk Air to fly to Bhutan, I think this is about the only time I actually had to take the airplane stairs. It was hot (Korean summers are so bad), and a handful of the other passengers were in a bad mood – partly because they were going back to Incheon/Seoul from their holiday from Jeju. Do I blame them? Nah.

I do appreciate that the stairs are sheltered though. A simple, but really thoughtful touch.

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I haven’t tried other budget carriers in Korea, but I do think that Jeju Air is not bad, if you consider factors such as price point, service, legroom, etc. Just be prepared for flight delays – I think they are pretty inevitable.