Departure: Gimpo (Seoul)
Arrival: Jeju City
Airline: Jeju Air
Flight: 7C101
Duration: 1 h 10 min
Plane: Boeing 737-800

Jeju Air Co., Ltd., is the first and largest South Korean low-cost airline. It is also a founding member of the Value Alliance.  For our trip to Jeju Island, we decided to fly with Jeju Air as it was one of the cheapest budget airlines on the day that we wanted to take the flight. However, it also came with an unearthly hour with the flight departure at 6.30am, which means we had to wake up at 4.30am to make our way to the airport. The queue was not so long and it was good that the airline had several counters opened to speed up the registration process.

I booked the Jeju Air ticket with 15 kg of checked-in baggage, but upon reaching the airport, we still exceeded the baggage allowance by 7 kg. I thought the staff would be nice and waive off the excess baggage, but still they made us pay for it. It was an additional $2 per kg, so we paid the extra $14 which wasn’t so bad.

Gimpo Airport was full of domestic tourists, all taking early morning flights. Most of the flights were departing to Jeju, except for a small number going to Ilsan (Goyang) or to Busan. I was glad that I booked the next morning flight instead of the late evening flight to Jeju the day before. As our Air Canada flight was supposed to arrive in Seoul Incheon airport at 18:25, but due to the longer flight time, we only landed in Seoul at 20:00. We also needed to clear immigration, and collect our luggage, before catching the Airport express train to change airport to Gimpo. It would have been a mad rush and surely we would miss our flight, as the latest flight leaving from Gimpo to Jeju is at 21:00.

It was slightly messy when the boarding call started at 6:10am. Our boarding passes were printed on normal receipt paper so it was flimsy. After showing our boarding passes and passport for identification, we were allowed to board the plane.

The flight was very full, so even at 6:30am every people are willing to wake up early and sacrifice their sleep time in order to secure an early arrival to Jeju. The plane had a 3-3 seating arrangement, with a single aisle, typical for budget airlines with a quick turnaround timing.

After a short 1 hour flight, the pilot announced that we were landing into Jeju International Airport. I had barely caught some sleep during the flight. There was no aerobridge, so we deplaned using the steps and a shuttle bus brought us to the terminal. There was no need for immigration as this was a domestic flight. We caught a glimpse of the beautiful sunrise while disembarking from the plane.

After waiting for a short while, we collected our luggage and made our way out of the airport. My car rental only starts at 11:00, so we had some time to kill and we decided to have a hearty breakfast at the airport terminal, which turned out to be one of our best meals on the trip.