The fourth of five intra-continental flights we took during our honeymoon through Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, was from Jeju Island to Seoul with Air Seoul. Here’s my Air Seoul review and everything you need to know before flying with them!
Booking Your Air Seoul Tickets
Air Seoul is a South Korean budget airline based at Incheon International Airport in Seoul, and is also a subsidiary of the much larger Asiana Airlines. In fact, Air Seoul only has a fleet of six aircraft as of November 2025 — so it’s pretty small!
We traveled from Jeju Island to Seoul (Gimpo) in September, and we booked our tickets using the CapitalOne Venture X travel portal way back in January. It was great that using the CapitalOne portal was an option, because we earn 10x points on flights we book through there! However, the flights only cost about $32 USD per person, one way, so we didn’t actually get that many points. 😂
Looking at the Air Seoul website though, it’s definitely not very user-friendly. I translated it into English, and I can’t even get it to load the origin and destination options, so that’s pretty inconvenient if you’re trying to book flights through their website.
Note: When you book your tickets with Air Seoul, be sure to put your name exactly as it’s listed on your passport, and include your middle name if you have one. More on that later…
When I booked my ticket with CapitalOne, I didn’t notice any details about what bags were included or not included with our tickets. From what I remembered during my few budget flights around Southeast Asia back in 2018, I remembered carry-on bags being included — not nickeled and dimed like they are in Europe. So we just went to the airport and figured we’d deal with the baggage situation when we needed to.
Air Seoul Check-In Logistics
In the U.S. and Europe, if you’re traveling domestically or within the EU, you are typically able to check in and get your boarding pass online instead of having to go to the desk. And though this hadn’t been the case on any of our other flights on this trip, we WERE able to check-in online the night before and get our boarding passes emailed to us with Air Seoul!
We were excited because this meant that we wouldn’t have to get to the airport too early to stand in a long line and check in. So when we got there, we went straight to security… only to be turned away.
Just as had happened on our flight from Busan to Jeju with Jin Air, our middle names were not on our digital boarding passes, so they were considered invalid. Which meant that we did have to go to the check-in desk after all, where they printed us new boarding passes and included our middle names.
And luckily, when we went to the desk for the new boarding passes, they didn’t say anything about our bags.
Matt and I both travel with two backpacks — a smaller bag and a larger carry-on sized backpack. On our first flight on this trip, from Osaka to Taipei with VietJet Air, they’d made us gate-check both our bags because they were over the weight limit for carry-ons. But Jeju Air and Jin Air hadn’t cared at all — and it seemed like Air Seoul was in the same boat.
There were no special bag tags for “approved” carry-on items, and they didn’t care to weigh our stuff. So we didn’t have to pay extra for bringing carry-ons or checking our bags or anything!
Security at Jeju Island Airport
Honestly, I don’t even remember going through security at Jeju Island’s airport, which I’m going to say is a good thing. (There is only one airport from this trip whose security situation I remember, in a negative way.) I don’t think we ever had to wait more than like 5 minutes in a security line in South Korea.
Also, in case you didn’t know, you can take food through security. (And, full-size liquids if you’re traveling domestically within Korea!) I had been carrying around a big plastic bag full of gluten-free snacks for me, and random other assorted items that I was too lazy to fit into my backpack after five weeks of travel. Not only did security not care, but gate agents never said anything about it either.
Air Seoul Flight Experience
The flight was so short — just over an hour — that there really isn’t much to say about Air Seoul. Again, I don’t think I have anything negative to say, so that must be positive.
The seats were comfortable enough, there was plenty of overhead bin space available, and we arrived on time. What more can you ask for?
Air Seoul Value
It was a bit annoying that the middle name thing popped up as an issue again, but at least it didn’t surprise us this time, and how can you be mad at all about a $32 flight? The fact that our carry-ons were free — and we could have even checked a bag for free — was kind of insane for the ticket price. RyanAir could never!
Air Seoul was one of the cheapest flights we took on this trip, and since we didn’t have to pay to bring our bags, they’d definitely be at the top of my list of airlines to fly with again next time I’m in Asia. So far, Jeju Air, Jin Air, and Air Seoul had been the big winners of our airline comparison experiment.
One flight left: Peach Aviation from Seoul back to Tokyo… 👀
Key Takeaways: Air Seoul Review
Air Seoul baggage allowance: One personal item + one carry-on bag (max weight 10kg) on board; free checked bag (max weight 15kg). Get more details.
Anyway, those are my thoughts about our experience with Air Seoul! Of course, your experience may vary and I can’t promise you’ll have the same positive experience that we did.
Have you ever flown with Air Seoul, or are you thinking about it? Let me know in the comments.
-Cathy
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