After a lovely few days in a reopened Japan, it was time to head home to Singapore. For my return flight to Singapore, I had redeemed a JAL business class through Alaska Mileage Plan, at a cost of 25,000 Mileage Plan miles. This included a domestic leg from Osaka Itami to Tokyo Haneda. My flight back to Singapore would also depart from Haneda after an overnight stopover in Tokyo.
If you have read my review of that domestic leg, you would recall it started rather frustratingly at check-in. Considering the flight itself was 45min, there wasn’t much opportunity for JAL give a positive impression after that incident. With a longer international hop to SIN, would they redeem themselves?
Sadly, the answer to that question was a borderline no. There were some high points of the JAL experience, but the airline has too many product quirks that I can’t accept. Read on to find out the finer details what’s great and not-great of my JAL business class flight from Tokyo to Singapore.
Check-in
After checking out from my stay at the Conrad Tokyo, I hopped onto the JR line and then Tokyo Monorail to Haneda Terminal 3. I arrived at Haneda around 9.45am, 1h45min before the scheduled departure of JL37. JAL’s check-in counters were located just to the left of the entrance to the terminal from the monorail station.
When I got to the check-in counters, there was one person ahead of me in the business class queue. After he had been attended to, a staff member came over from premium economy to ask if I mind checking in at premium economy instead. Of course that’s no problem, anything that gets me to duty free and the lounge faster.
I was asked for a vaccination certificate, which was scrutinised rather thoroughly. After an odd question on having taken three Pfizer shots, I was handed my boarding pass. The check-in staff also asked if I wanted to sign up for JAL Mileage Bank. Since my JAL flying is restricted to AS Mileage Plan redemptions, I declined despite a “but it’s free to sign up”.
There was a queue at security, but it moved quickly. I started taking out my electronics and LAGs for screening, only to later realise Haneda has new CT scanners. I don’t know why the security staff didn’t tell me this when I was emptying my carry-on. At immigration, temporary visitors are now able to use automated gates, so that was an added convenience as well. I have to commend the Japanese authorities and Haneda Airport for taking steps to make the immigration and security experience quicker and more seamless.
Once through security, it was off to duty free – which had a long checkout line – and then to the Sakura Lounge.
JAL Sakura Lounge Sky View Haneda
The JAL Sakura Lounge Sky View is located on the 5th floor of Haneda Terminal 3, just past gate 114 along the main length of the terminal.
With a handful of North America and Asia departures in the mid to late morning, the lounge was pretty packed when I got there at around 10.20am. The crowd did thin out around 10.45am or so. The lounge is quite large, so finding a seat was not a problem. The most crowded areas were the dining area and the sections closest to it and the lounge entrance.
Seating
The lounge is split into several distinct areas, each with different types of seating and ambience. There was the dining area, a large section with large windows and loads of natural light overlooking the tarmac, and quieter, windowless area.
There was still a lot of dividers used to separate tables. I don’t really have an issue with this, but they just seemed arbitrarily placed. Some areas had separation, but others didn’t.
There were long communal tables, suiting for working or dining, in both the dining area and the quiet area. There was USB charging, but the power outlets were Type A plug only.
Dining
During my stay, I spent my time in the dining area. I wasn’t really hungry, but decided to give the food a try to see how the offerings compare to ANA.
For some reason, JAL has switched over to a somewhat cafeteria style of food service. I presume this switch happened earlier in the pandemic and they’ve just decided to continue to roll with it. This is a contrast to my experience with the ANA lounges in Narita, which buffet-style when I passed through during transits in February and September.
To get food, passengers have to queue at the food service area to place an order with staff, who then hand over a numbered plastic chip. Passengers then continue shuffling round the food service area and wait for staff to call the number. On their website, JAL have touted this change as a measure against “food loss reduction”. They’ve tried to package this as a sustainability measure. I call it inefficient.
I fail to see how this really reduces food wastage. If anything, it’s likely that food wastage will increase. Instead of being able to pick and choose the exact type and quantity of items they want, passengers are now forced to accept a fixed menu and quantity. Wouldn’t that lead to more unfinished food to be thrown away? Honestly I have no idea what JAL is trying to do here. Maybe their strategy is to cause long queues and make it so inconvenient that some passengers just won’t be bothered to eat?
I fail to see how this helps JAL to save costs either. Since unlike a buffet which is self-service, now they actually need staff to prepare and serve food? To top it all off, this doesn’t save anyone time or reduce congestion around the food. Instead of passengers crowding around a buffet, now there’s passengers crowding around an order and food collection area. Go figure.
Here’s what the food area and its queue looked like when I first got to the lounge:
For what it’s worth, here’s the menu selection:
Having had two breakfasts before coming to the airport, I opted for a small plate of JAL Original Beef Curry. The portion and taste was acceptable, but the curry was lacking any beef except for a tiny morsel.
There were beverage dispensers in the dining area and the quiet zone. There was also an additional small counter with alcohol between the two main seating areas. Of course, any airline lounge in Japan should the automated beer pouring machines, and the Sakura Lounge has several. These are machines are quite cool and amusing to watch. It was a little too early in the morning for beer for me though.
Overall
I can’t really fault the décor and design of the Sakura Lounge. The distinct seating areas is good, catering to different groups of passengers with differing needs and priorities. With the nice views and loads and natural light, it’s a pretty pleasant place to kill time for a flight, perhaps with a beer from the automated beer machines. I just can’t get over the food service though. As travel in and out of Japan continues to ramp up, I can imagine the queues will just get longer. I wonder how long JAL can persist with this.
Boarding
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately given the amount of eating I usually do in Japan, my gate 105 was located literally all the way at the other end of the terminal. Thus I had to leave fairly early, around 10.50am to make the long trek to gate 105. When I got there, the area looked a bit of a zoo. As it turned, a JAL flight to Bangkok which departs at 11.25am (5min before mine) was boarding at the next gate. I do hate it when airlines/airports have two flights departing at around the same time, next to each other. In SIN it’s not much so much a problem with individual gatehold rooms, but it can get messy with common holding areas as with the vast majority of airports.
At around 11am, there was announcement that boarding would be delayed to 11.10am to allow more time for “preparations on the aircraft”. Pre-boarding commenced exactly at 11.10am, and I was able to board 10min later. Despite boarding commencing late, we actually pushed back bang on time at 11.30am. I’m constantly impressed by how Japanese airlines are almost always able to depart on time.
Onboard
My seat, 11K, was a window seat on the right side of the aircraft, in the smaller rear cabin aft of door 2. Preset at my seat was a pillow, blanket, slippers, headphones, menu, “amenity items” and a bottle of water.
The Seat
This 787-9 was fitted with JAL’s “Sky Suite III” reverse herringbone business class, with 52 seats spread across two cabin sections in a 1-2-1 layout. The Sky Suite III is the Zodiac Aerospace (now part of Safran) Aries. While it looks like a regular reverse herringbone design, it’s unusual in that the footwells of the middle seat pairs overlap on top of each other, with each seat in the pair reclining to different heights in lie-flat mode.
The maximum seat width 51cm or 21.1in, while the maximum bed length is 198cm.Deispite that, the footwell felt a bit tighter and shorter than most reverse herringbone seats I’ve experienced, such as EVA’s original Cirrus (also a Zodiac/Safran product) which I flew about a month prior. When lying down, my feet were already getting pinched by the narrowing space, and I’m a relatively shorter height.
There’s also no legrest on the Sky Suite III, which is mildly annoying as some thigh support when in a lounging or upright position would be good.
While the footwell didn’t seem the most spacious I’ve experienced, the seat is still fairly comfortable in lie-flat position. I did managed a couple of hours of rest during this flight.
The seat controls on the 787 version of the Sky Suite III is located on the shell of the seat in front, just below the literature pocket. With no legrest, the seat controls were fairly basic, with just two buttons to move the seat either into a more reclined or upright position.
Similar to other reverse herringbone seats, the Sky Suite III has a large triangular seat console, with an enclosed storage compartment at the back of the console. The universal power outlet, USB charging port and headphone jack were located beneath the storage compartment
The IFE controller and reading light were built into shell of the seat, adjacent to the storage compartment. The IFE controller on this 787 was touchscreen, a feature that has seemingly led JAL to make some odd choices with the IFE interface, which I’ll detail later.
The main IFE screen is a large 17in touchscreen. The touchscreen function though, is largely useless. I’ll explain later in the IFE section.
The tray table is stored vertically, latched to the back of shell of the seat in front. To deploy, it has to be released and pulled down, the tray table itself then can be swiveled towards the passenger.
One advantage of such a tray table deployment is I was able to get out of my seat even with the table fully deployed. I just had to swivel it away, lower the retractable armrest, and slide out of my seat.
Finally, as with most business class seats today, the seatbelt is a 3-point with a shoulder strap.
Overall I’d consider the Sky Suite III to be a pretty standard reverse herringbone seat. Some passengers may find the footwell a little tight perhaps, since it was just about acceptable for me. I would also have liked to see a legrest, but that’s more a mild inconvenience. The seat is perfectly fine for a medium-haul intra-Asia flight, and even for long-haul, though personally I’d love to travel in a Sky Suite-equipped aircraft instead.
Amenities
As mentioned earlier, there was a pillow, blanket headphones and a comfort pack preset at my seat. The pillow was a little too flat and limp for my liking.
The headphones were Sony with active noise cancellation. These were just OK quality. The noise cancellation was alright but definitely not Bose QC level.
On Hawaii, Southeast Asia and India routes, JAL provides a small bag of “comfort items”. The items are similar to the long-haul amenity kit, just not the pouch. The medium-haul version is a simple drawstring bag. Inside the drawstring bag is a toothbrush set, earplugs, eye shades, and a moisture mask.
Food & Beverage and Service
Let me begin this section by saying the F&B was both the highest and lowest point of this flight. The low point was also partly a service issue, though more a policy matter than any fault of the crew themselves.
For international business class flights, the inflight menu can be viewed in advance on JAL’s website. In manage booking, a choice of Western or Japanese can be pre-ordered in advance as well. Since this was a Japanese airline flying out of Japan, I pre-ordered the Japanese meal. Here’s the food menu for this flight:
And here’s the beverage menu:
It was interesting to see that the only champagne on offer was a rosé. That’s quite a bold choice I feel. Also interesting that the Japanese plum wine (umeshu) and Japanese whisky options were left generic.
JAL still provides paper menus on board, which is a nice touch when some airlines removed paper menus for a long time for “Covid-19 reasons”.
Prior to departure, a crew member came over to introduce herself. She later returned to take post-takeoff drink orders, and also to confirm that I had pre-ordered the Japanese meal. No pre-departure drinks were offered, which was disappointing.
Service took awhile to get started, though that’s not necessarily an issue on a 6h+ flight with only one proper meal service. A crew member came round to lay a tablecloth around 50mins after departure.
Around 10mins later, the champagne I had ordered and some senbei (Japanese rice crackers) were delivered. The senbei was served just in the packet. At least EVA Air bothers to provide a bowl with the packet.
The first course, or “Honami” box was served 7min later, with no regard for whether I was still indulging in the pre-lunch senbei and champagne.
This course was visually beautiful and full of delicious goodies. I liked everything in this box. From the conger eel and salmon in the top left to the wagyu and taro at the bottom right, and everything else in between. I’m pretty sure I finished everything. The only minor complaint was the Japanese crab wasn’t pure crab meat.
Not long after this was cleared, the Dainomono was brought out. This was another delicious course.
I had been looking forward to the deep-fried Black Cod, but I felt the chicken ended up outshining it. The cod was still decent, though being immersed in sauce and after the whole catering process, it ended up overcooked and lost the crust from deep-frying. The chicken though, was wonderfully marinated, and still retained that char from the grilling process. The meat was still reasonably tender, perhaps slightly overcooked as well. Which is rather expected for inflight meals. I would have liked the curry to be a bit more spicy, but it was good nonetheless and went well with both the rice and chicken.
The dessert of soybean mousse topped with red bean confiture and deep fried chestnut was delivered after the Dainomono was cleared. I don’t like red bean, so thankfully there wasn’t too much of it, and it actually went pretty well with the soybean mousse. The deep-fried chestnuts added some crunch to the dish. A very nice way to end a good meal.
The main meal was great. I was honestly quite impressed. The quality of food, variety and creativity was quite good. There’s even abalone and wagyu in business class, albeit in small quantities. It was probably better than Japanese meals I’ve had on ANA or SQ ex-Japan. The portion size was about right too, it wasn’t too small nor did I feel full to the point of bursting.
Unfortunately, my perception of JAL’s food and service came crashing down later on in the flight. Around 1h45min before arrival, I decided to order a snack noodle just to try it out. I wasn’t that hungry given lunch had concluded 3h or so before, but waiting till dinner back home would have been a stretch. I called a crew member to my seat and ordered an “Udon de Sky” and a glass of the JAL Original Drink “SKYTIME Peach & Grape Mix”.
When my noodles was delivered barely a minute later, I was left aghast. The “udon” was cup noodles, served in its original packaging. When the shock had died down, I honestly nearly burst out laughing. I love a nice cup noodles every now and then, but I found this truly staggering. The udon itself as expected, was nothing like udon. Here’s some photos of the offending cup noodles:
The drink by the way, tasted like a fruity and sweet cough syrup. Would not recommend either.
Back to the noodles, honestly this felt unacceptable and a massive fail for business class on an airline of JAL’s standing. Other Asian airlines – Singapore Airlines, ANA just to name a couple – also serve instant noodles as a mid-flight snack in business class, but at least they bother to serve it in a bowl! I’m assuming this was standard service policy and not laziness on the part of the crew, Japanese are known for sticking to rules and policy after all. Hey, at least they stuck a sticker to keep the foil lid in place for the 3min the noodles need to cook eh?
For comparison, here’s a photo of the instant IPPUDO ramen I was served on ANA on the same HND-SIN sector, admittedly pre-Covid in 2018:
The style of serving a mid-flight shouldn’t be the determining factor in choosing an airline, but I just can’t fathom who in JAL decided this was an appropriate manner for business class. Not when your domestic competitor so obviously puts in more effort. To be clear, it’s not the cup noodles itself that’s a problem, it is what it is. The presentation is shockingly low effort.
As I mentioned at the start of this section, the F&B was both peak and nadir of the experience. The main meal was excellent, but the cup noodles presentation was just….bad, so bad. A part of me wishes I had never ordered the noodles and I could continue to be oblivious to this. If that had happened, this review would probably have had a different conclusion.
Inflight Entertainment and Wifi
Actually, that last line above on the conclusion of this review might still have been true, if the IFE system didn’t give another WTF moment.
Before I get to that, I’ll briefly mention the wifi. Inflight wifi was available, though of course it’s not complimentary unlike on domestic routes like my ITM-HND flight the previous day. Wifi pricing and instructions were on a printed leaflet. The full flight pricing was quite reasonable, but I had no need to be connected so I didn’t purchase a plan.
Back to the IFE, the system on this aircraft is called “MAGIC VI” by JAL, and trust me there’s nothing magical about it. The platform itself is a Thales AVANT system. What’s my gripe with the system? Well mainly it’s the fact that the main touchscreen is useless. Programmes will play on the main screen, however it can’t be used for browsing. That’s right, all browsing has to be done on the IFE controller, which to make matters worse was rather laggy.
I initially thought it might be a fault with the system, but the crew informed me that’s how it worked on aircraft with that system. They explained, the controller is more convenient when lying flat. That’s a fair statement, but at least give passengers the option of viewing either? Almost every other airline does that. Singapore Airlines uses the Thales AVANT on their medium haul (SH-series) A350s, and browsing can definitely be done on the main screen. Why didn’t JAL take up that option?
The content variety wasn’t great either. I struggled to find something to keep myself occupied during the flight. I would like to have photos to show the content available, but taking photos of the controller was just a struggle.
As usual though, the best view was out the wonderful. I was treated once again to a great view of Mt Fuji as we climbed out of Haneda, this time with a beautiful clear sky.
Conclusion
Honestly, the JAL business class experience wasn’t great. Sure, it wasn’t a total dud either The Sky Suite III seat is reasonably comfortable, and the main meal was, dare I say, superior to ANA. Still, these were just a couple of peaks in an otherwise lacklustre business class experience.
I wanted very much to like JAL, particularly as I’ve got to do the exact same routing back for Sakura season next year. But some of JAL’s product and service choices are just bewildering. From the weird choice to persist with staff-served food in the lounge, to the hopelessly dumb IFE interface, and finally the no-f***s-given cup noodles presentation. As the title states, just what were JAL thinking with these product and service choices?
Anyone else flown JAL business class? Did you have a better experience than this?