I recently returned from my vacation to Japan, and flew Japan Airlines’ business class on the flight back. However, unlike my flight to Tokyo, where I flew on JAL’s new A350 business class, I now flew on the ‘old’ business class product on a Boeing 787-9. In this post I wanted to give a quick look at what that was like.

1. Check-in and boarding at Tokyo-Narita airport
2. JAL’s Sakura Lounge was spacious and relaxing
3. JAL’s ‘old’ business class seat holds up pretty well
4. Good food, good service
5. Other amenities: amenity kit, entertainment, WiFi
6. Summary

Check-in and boarding at Tokyo-Narita airport

My flight was not a direct flight to New York as I didn’t find award availability. Instead, I flew to Boston, departing from Tokyo-Narita Intl Airport, Terminal 2. Getting to the airport is easy enough, given Japan’s fantastic train system. Upon arrival, signage is clear enough, and brought me to the upper level of the terminal. Here, an entire aisle was dedicated to First class, and another to business class, which were easy to find. There was no line and I was motioned over immediately by a friendly agent who promptly gave me my boarding pass, as well as a map to explain the location of priority security and immigration, and the location of the lounge.

JAL’s Sakura Lounge was spacious and relaxing

I already wrote a separate review on this lounge, but I thought I’d give a summary here. Finding this lounge is not the easiest, but thanks to the check-in agent’s instructions it was easy enough to find. The lounge is a modern design with lots of wood paneling that gives a warm and relaxing bive, which I much enjoyed. it’s also a large and spacious lounge with different seating options over two floors, depending on your preference.

The top floor is called ‘The Dining’ and contains a cafeteria-style restaurant. That is, you order at the counter and are served up plates that you can take to your seat on a tray. Here and throughout the lounge you can also find drinking stations with beer, wine, sake, juices, sodas and hot drinks, plus a specific area where you can order food to pickup by a QR code.

Finally, there are a variety of other amenities, including a shower room, massage chairs, lockers and phone booths that you can use freely, with availability depending on current demand. For example, when I checked the line for the showers, there were 11 people on the waiting list, and the 6 massage chairs were all being used.

JAL’s ‘old’ business class seat holds up pretty well

Boarding commenced with a 10-minute delay. I was in group 2, right after elite members in JAL’s frequent flyer program and OneWorld. I boarded through the second set of doors and was directed immediately left. I had chosen seat 1A for myself, which is a true window seat.

As you can see, these seats are a little different in that they are in a 2-2-2 configuration. These seats are the Apex Suite product, the major upside of them being that the full length of the bed is available to you in actual, useable space. With most other seats, your feet go under the seat in front of you in bed mode. That said, the downside is that laterally you are somewhat confined, and this was my main worry. Fortunately, the seat does not feel tight. It’s wide enough to sit comfortably through all stages of flight. The seat features a universal charging plug and USB-A charging, and has both a light overhead as well as reading light off the side of the seat. There are no individual air nozzles. A control panel to the right of the seat controls all the seat’s functions, and there is a touchscreen remote control for the entertainment system.

There is a ‘window’ that sort of allows access to the seat beside you, but there is a partition that can be raised to increase privacy. Once you do that, you will find that you have a significant amount of privacy – certainly not as much as with JAL’s A350 business class, since it has higher walls and a door, but it is still a greta amount of privacy. Besides, weird as this may sound, I thought the lower walls were a benefit in communicating with the crew. It was easier for them to see if I needed anything, and easier for me to grab their attention.

I could only find one gripe with the seat, and that is the lack of storage options. You can place a carry-on under the ottoman, and then there is a shelf under the TV as well as to your side. Then, later on, I found that there is a compartment straight behind the seat, but this is not an easily accessible location to store valuables. I also want to note that you will have different storage options depending on the seat you assign yourself. The seats next to the window seat actually has a large storage compartment on the left-hand side. This is the space right behind the window seat’s seat.

Later on into the flight I went to sleep. Among the things on my seat there had not been a mattress pad, so I inquired and was given an actual mattress pad, not the flimsy thing I was given at departure on the flight to Tokyo. With the shape of seat’s cushions being essentially flat throughout, plus the mattress pad, I found this seat was an exceedingly comfy bed. I managed to sleep for about 5 hours, which is rather unheard of for me. I woke up as the lights were turned on for the ‘morning’ service.

Good food, good service

This should not come as a surprise, but the food and service were both very good. Like on my flight to Tokyo, I had ordered the ‘Washoku’, or traditional Japanese, dinner option. This came in the form of a tasty appetizer, followed by two trays of different small items featuring different preparations of vegetables, fish and meat, followed by dessert. Most everything was delicious. I do feel as though this particular meal was better than what I got on the flight from New York to Tokyo. Ingredients seemed fresher and better cooked.

On my quick look of my flight to Tokyo, I noted that the service did not seem as polished as I had expected. I’m happy to say that this time around, the service was both attentive and polished. My sense was that the flight attendants did a better job staying in touch, collecting any trash and offering further services as necessary. Every so often an attendant would peaked round the corner to see if anything was needed. I do believe, as much as I like the privacy of the A350 suites, that the higher walls may impair the flight attendant’s ability to do this effectively. With regards to the lavatories, the crew did a greta job keeping things clean.

Other amenities: amenity kit, entertainment, WiFi

In terms of other amenities, when I boarded there were a couple items that were at my seat. The amenity kit was the same I received on my flight to Tokyo, so I won’t go into further detail on that. Further there were a pillow and blanket, though the pillow didn’t seem as fresh or nice as the one on my A350 flight, a bottle of water, slippers, headphones and a menu. The headphones were also different from the ones on the A350, which were over-ear, while these ones were on-ear. I found these to be perfectly adequate and were quite comfortable to wear for the duration of the movie I was watching. A little after boarding I was also offered the famous JAL cardigan, which was very comfy. I was also offered a pre-departure drink, champagne or orange juice, and I chose the latter. What was not given to me from the outset was any kind of mattress pad, but I requested one later during the flight.

For the WiFi, since I had experience setting this up from the first flight, it was less of an ordeal but still not straightforward. luckily, this flight seemed to have been quite empty so my connection speeds were quite good throughout the flight.

With regards to the entertainment, given that the screen is quite far away, you are best of using the remote control to control the entertainment system. It’s noticeably an older system since you need to press quite hard onto the touchscreen remote, and the small screen makes it a little cumbersome to get through all the options. But, it works… It also seems as though there may have been some updated to the entertainment, and while still not a stellar selection, I quite enjoyed watching Alien: Romulus, which I had meant to sere in theaters but never got around to.

Summary

Japan Airlines’ B787-9 business class provided a very nice experience. Perhaps surprisingly, I felt this flight was better than my flight to Tokyo, on the A350. A major contributor was likely the departure time of 6:30pm, which allows for a dinner/sleeping flow that matches my day-to-day routine. This is in contrast to the flight to Tokyo, which departed at midnight. Regardless, I do feel that the old business class seat holds up well. I found it very comfortable during all phases of flight, regardless of whether I was sitting up for takeoff or landing, lounging while watching a movie, or sleeping. My only gripe is the lack of easily accessible storage for personal items. I further felt the service was attentive and polished, and the food was excellent. I would be happy to fly on JAL’s old business class again!