About a month ago I returned from my several week-long vacation in Japan. I was lucky to fly Japan Airlines’ new business class product in their new A350-1000, from New York-JFK to Tokyo-Haneda. I’ve previously published a quick look for this flight, and I recently published my review of the Greenwich Lounge, where I spent a few hours before my flight. Here, I will provide the full flight review of my flight.
Briefly, JAL’s new A350 business class is very comfortable, immensely private and has nice features and technology that elevate the product to a next-gen level in terms of the passenger experience. JAL’s food is tasty and the service friendly, though perhaps not as great as I expected.
- How I booked my flight
- Check-in experience
- Boarding experience
- JAL A350-1000 business class seat
- Other amenities: amenity kit, headphones and other miscellaneous items and features
- Departure from New York-JFK
- JAL A350-1000 lavatories
- JAL’s A350 entertainment system and pre-sleeping snack service
- JAL’s bedding is adequate: basically comfortable
- JAL business class meal service
- JAL Wifi service is free but is comically complicated to access
- Closing in on Tokyo: descent, landing and arrival
- A few thoughts on the service
- Summary
How I booked my flight
I booked this flight through Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan. I gathered enough points through a welcome bonus and completion of the spend requirement on an Alaska Airlines credit card. I then also completed some shopping through the Alaska shopping portal. I was then able to book this flight for 80,000 points, and $18.10 in taxes and fees, an exceptional value that is only trumped by booking through American Airlines.
Specifically, I booked flight JL6, departing JFK at 12:35AM, to arrive at HND at 5:10AM. Note that at the time of booking this would be served by a Boeing 777, but as I booked this news starting coming out of changes in JAL’s schedules following the delivery of a second and third A350. then finally last May I noticed a change ins eat assignment which signaled the equipment swap from the 777 to the A350. Rejoice! For now and further into the future it seems like this route will be served by the A350.
Check-in experience
At JFK, Japan Airlines departs from Terminal 8, which is the American Airlines terminal, together with a handful of other OneWorld carriers. Arriving at the check-in area, JAL sorts its passengers into several lines: First, Business/Premium economy, and Economy. First class got one counter, Business/Premium Economy got one counter, and Economy got two counters. There was also a counter for general service that would otherwise accept any First or Business/Premium Economy passengers waiting for their respective counters to free up.
Check-in was smooth. Attendants were fairly speedy. I had already checked in online, so it was just a matter of checking my bag and handing me a paper boarding pass. I will add that the attendant was lovely. She was courteous and friendly without being overly familiar. She stepped out of her booth to hand me the boarding pass and explained all the details, including the departure time, fare class, seat number and boarding group, and she made special mention of the name of the lounge, as well as where to locate it. I appreciated this extra gesture – it can really make a difference in the whole experience.
After check-in and passing through security – at this time of day the TSA PreCheck lane was closed, and it didn’t seem there was a special line for business class passengers – I made my way to the Greenwich Lounge. I previously published my review for this very nice lounge, which you can read here.
Boarding experience
About 15 minutes before boarding, boarding was announced in the lounge, so I left for the gate. Upon arriving there I couldn’t do but have a look at the magnificent plane that I’d be flying on: the new and shiny A350-1000 standing right outside the terminal, quietly waiting for boarding to commence. Unfortunately it would appear that the flight would be delayed due to some ‘troubleshooting’.
Information throughout this process was scarce. About 15 minutes after boarding should have started, one of the gate attendants finally said that boarding would be delayed for another 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes came and went when we were told that there was some troubleshooting going on.
About 40 minutes after boarding should have started, pre-boarding was announced and group 1 was called to line up. What followed was another wait of 10-15 minutes before group 1 was allowed to board, at which point group 2 (my group) was called. I estimate that I boarded about an hour after boarding had been scheduled. Despite the delay, the process was smooth, and when I entered the aircraft, I was greeted and directed to turn left into the second aisle.
JAL A350-1000 business class seat
I had assigned myself seat 5K, which is a ‘true’ window seat on the right side of the plane. JAL’s new business class product, currently exclusive to the A350-1000, is a staggered seat in a 1-2-1 configuration where each seat has direct aisle access. Thus, within the footprint of the suite, the seat itself can be either on the left or right side. In the center, seats alternate between being closer together (there is a partition that can be raised) or closer to the aisle, while the window seats alternate between being adjacent to the window, or closer to the aisle. In the below picture, this is best visualized by the position of the entertainment screen, which alternates between the left or right side of a suit.
I’ll add that the business class cabin in the A350 is quite large, as it’s spread over two cabins: first class and part of business class are in-between doors 1 and 2, and the rest of business class is between doors 2 and 3, together with a fairly small premium economy cabin. All in all there are 54 business class seats, and this flight seemed to be full.
First impressions of the seat were great. The height of the walls and doors to each suite are remarkable, extending significantly over the headrest so that, when seated, you can’t see any of the passengers unless you peak around the open doors. Thus you really have a ‘suite’. to yourself. Waiting for me were a pillow, blanket, mattress pad and ‘relaxation wear’, as well as a very colorful amenity kit, two bottles of water, headphones, a refreshing (warming) eye/beauty mask and a menu. You will also notice that part of the entertainment screen is hiding behind a door: this is to allow access to the wardrobe, which is just to the left of said screen. I like this attention to detail. Note that there are no overhead air nozzles.
Once seated, the padding was comfortable but wasn’t particularly soft or plush. The seat is a good size, not tight at all but also not overly big. The headrest is adjustable, with ‘wings’ that can be extended for comfort. Sitting down the height of the suite’s walls is quite humbling, and you really feel like you’re in your own little cocoon. Some people will love this, others may not like it – I thought it was rather special to have so much privacy on an aircraft (outside first class).
The next thing to notice is the ample storage. First of all you’d likely want to stow your carryon under the ottoman. That is, I personally like to have my stuff close to me, if possible, so that I don’t need to get up to reach for the overhead bins. JAL thoughtfully designed a large space beneath the ottoman that allows for at least a standard-size carry on to fit easily. However, with the increasing sizes of carryons these days, I’m not so sure if every carryon will fit.
Then, you might want to put your jacket in the wardrobe, which includes a coat hanger. The wardrobe slides closed and this will also reveal the full extent of the entertainment screen. One thing to note is that the wardrobe must be closed for the seat to go into anything but upright mode, as the wardrobe door will block the movement. There is also a drawer of sorts where you can place your shoes. This probably seems like a detail, and it’s certainly not something that will make or break a flight. That said, having your shoes securely stowed and not lying around your suite made a difference to my experience (but, I’m a stickler for organization).
Then to the left you will find a bunch more compartments. There is a compartment with a door that is fairly standard in business class seats, and in most airlines serves to hold a water bottle (such as here as well) and headphones. While the headphones were presented lying on the bedding, I did ultimately place it in the compartment with the door closed.
The console is spacious with ample place to store items such as a book, your phone or an iPad, or to keep a drink without needing to extent toe tray table. On top of the console was another little compartment with a top-closing hatch, which proved perfect to hold valuables, such as your keys, wallet, passport, phone and my glasses (while sleeping). Just don’t forget to remove any items at the end of the flight.
Beneath the console are the seat controls, which are largely intuitive. There are preset buttons that will allow you to go into upright, lounge and flat modes by pressing and holding them, but you can also control different parts of the seat independently. This includes buttons for moving the entire seat back and forth (for dinner, for example), as well as the backrest and footrest. Then there’s also buttons to control the different lights, such as the overhead light and the reading light. There’s also a crew call button.
With all your stuff tucked away, you will find yourself looking at the gorgeous 24″ HD entertainment monitor. I found this screen to be of terrific quality with good dynamic range and great resolutions. This screen is quite a bit bigger than you’ll find on many airlines, and promised to make for a fantastic viewing experience.
This screen is a touchscreen, but I found it a tad too far away to control comfortably. Precisely for this scenario JAL provides a remote control, which is attached to the seat with a wire. it’s easy enough to pop it out of its socket, pull it out as far as you need, and use it. This remote control is also touch screen, and I found it generally very responsive and easy to use.
One final feature of this seat that’s worth mentioning, and it is a rather nifty thing: there are loudspeakers in the headrest. Thus, this is perhaps the first time that you can listen to audio or watch a movie without actually needing to plug in headphones – you could simply listen to the sound directly, although it will be at a fairly soft level so as not to disturb other passengers. of course you still have the option of using headphones, be it the provided ones, or you can pair your own bluetooth headphones with the entertainment system.
All in all, this seat is very good. It is amazingly private with its high walls, I love all the storage options so that you can truly find a place to store most anything you carry (a jacket, shoes, personal items and a carryon), the entertainment screen is big and bright, and all features are generally intuitive. I also liked the dark red design with silver finishes, which I feel provides a subdued yet elegant feel.
Other amenities: amenity kit, headphones and other miscellaneous items and features
In terms of charging, this seat does have some cool technologies. At the back of the console there are the usual universal charger sockets, but there are also a USB-A and USB-C plugs, and the headphone jack is here as well. Finally, there is a wireless charging option, as shown with the ‘charging battery’ symbol on the console’s surface, just below the sockets. Though I’ll add this did not work all that well for me. I tried this later while in flight, and found that I had to take my phone out of its case for adequate contact, and even then I had to lay my phone rather precisely. It’s easy to imagine how during turbulence your phone will move around and may stop charging. So, to me, the wireless charing seemed more of a gimmick than truly useful charing option, and I reverted to using wired charing. Thankfully, I was able to charge my laptop, phone and watch all at the same time due to the various different sockets and plugs available.
Next up, the amenity kit comes in the form of a lovely, colorful pouch. I spied different design at various seats, so I believe there are at least three or four variations in all. While the size of the pouch is a little small, it’s packet with some interesting stuff:
Inside were a pocket tissue, a toothbrush with toothpaste, ear plugs, a velvety eye mask, and, surprisingly, a multi-port charge cable as well as a phone stand. There were no creams or lotions of any kind, which surprised me as those seem like standard items to provide.
Departure from New York-JFK
After settling in, I was first greeted by the chief flight attendant. Regrettably I don’t remember her name, but she came by to introduce herself and to introduce the seat’s functions. The truth is that she sort of rushed through it, so while well-intentioned, it was a little awkward. One noteworthy thing she did mention was that food would be served after 8 hours. Due to the awkward departure time, the expectation was that passengers would prefer to sleep, and then receive food in their ‘normal’ EST time zone. So, 8 hours into the flight it would be about 9am in New York.
Next, a junior flight attendant passed by with a tray with pre-departure drinks. My understanding is that for a while JAL did not do this, so it was nice to receive a drink, in proper glassware. I chose some juice.
At this point we were delayed in our departure by over an hour, and I felt as though the crew was well-aware and was trying to rush through the welcome so that the delay wouldn’t be exacerbated. A little later we were well on our way to the runway, and soon we turned onto the runway for takeoff.
Climb out was mostly uneventful, with some small bumps here and there. The skies were mostly clear but unfortunately we turned left, and sicen I was seated on the right side of the plane, I was not able to get a last glimpse of the New York skyline before flying off to Tokyo.
As announced before, given the late departure time, passengers are suggested to sleep soon after departure. That said, I was not particularly tired, as I tend to be rather excited about flying. Soon after departure the seatbelt sign was turned off and the flight attendants sprang into action. I was glad that they quickly unlocked the doors, and it was now possible to close them. Once you close the door, you really find yourself in something of a private suite, which feels rather cozy and pleasant.
On the downside, I also felt a little bit isolated from the crew, as it became more difficult to grab attention of passing flight attendants, and I also felt like the flight attendants had a more difficult time communicating with us, the passengers.
JAL A350-1000 lavatories
Given the long flight and that we’d be starting with sleeping, I decided to take the opportunity to go to the lavatories, since I wanted to change into pajamas. JAL does give you ‘relaxation wear’, which on most flights is a cardigan, but on this flight I was provided a sort of nightgown. I later found that many hotels provide this sort of pajama as well, and seems like a normal part of Japanese hospitality. However, I found that the fabric was a little rough and thick. I tend to get warm easily so I opted to wear my own pajamas, which I had preemptively brought onboard in my carryon.
Wearing the JAL-provided slippers (unfortunately a little small for my feet) and pajamas in hand, I found the lavatories really clean. This was not surprising, given that we had just departed, but on my several visits to the lavatories I found all fo them to be very well maintained during the flight.
As you can see, the lavatory is a little bit tight, as most airplane lavatories are. This seemed like a fairly standard A350 lavatory, though I’ll add that I mostly judge that on pictures. I liked the variety of amenities that are provided. As you can see below, there’s toothbrushes and toothpaste, mouthwash and different kinds of hand soap. Unfortunately toothbrushes and mouthwash ran out towards the end of the flight and were not replenished.
Two other things I quite like was that JAL provided little cups, as well as a bidet function. A smany of you may know, Japanese toilets are quite advanced, and so JAL offers those same functions. While I did not use it, I liked this little piece of Japanese customs, something I’ve never seen before on a plane!
JAL’s A350 entertainment system and pre-sleeping snack service
Even though we were all sort of supposed to go to sleep, I wasn’t very tired, so I decided to spent some time with the entertainment system. I had a brief look at what sort of movies and TV shows are available. My impression was that it is not particularly extensive, though I did not count the actual numbers. As you can see from the below photos, there are some newer titles, though nothing ‘cutting edge’. I did like that they had a category for Japanese movies, which I was interested to see given that I was flying to, well, Japan. I think their selection of Japanese movies is quite extensive, though maybe not more so than that of ‘Western’ movies.
Overall, I think you’ll be able to keep yourself entertained with the entertainment catalog, but don’t expect to be overwhelmed with choice. I eventually settled for a Japanese thriller, which probably wasn’t a good idea in hindsight as it left me a little frazzled…
As an experiment I used the in-seat speakers, but to me they seemed more of a gimmick than a truly useful addition. Over the general sounds of the plane and passengers scurrying about, I didn’t think it was particularly easy to hear the sound of the movie, so ultimately I elected to use the JAL-provided noise canceling headphones. These worked well and made it easier to hear the audio, and to my pleasure they remained comfortable to wear throughout the flight (unlike the SAS headphones which started to hurt after a few hours).
While I was mostly using the touchscreen interface, I also tried controlling the system, with the remote. You have an options on whether you want to use a little touchpad, or use a more standard arrow key-type setup, similar to analog remotes:
Besides the entertainment system, you can also use the remote for a variety of other functions, such as the calling the crew and controlling lights, windows and the seat. It’s nice that you can do all of this from one location. Note that window control is possible because the A350 had the window dimming technology that we first saw on the Boeing 787.
Within half an hour or so, a flight attendant came by to ask if I wanted a snack. I liked this proactive attitude – given that the meal service would be served much later, it was very nice that they came by to ask if we wanted something before that. And is somebody asks me if I want food, how can I say no? Illustrating the height of the walls, she sort of poked her head over the edge and grabbed my attention by calling out. This was a little funny to me, as usually a flight attendant would just appear next to your seat and a little in front of you, perhaps bend down or kneel onto the floor to speak with you at eye level. This wasn’t quite as possible here, given the height of the walls.
This is a good moment to discuss the menu, which you will also find at your seat upon boarding. Of course I’d forgotten what was in it, so luckily the flight attendant immediately pulled up a menu for me to look at:
As you can see, there’s a substantial list of alcoholic beverages, as well as three food menus:
- The Washoku meal is the Japanese style main meal service;
- The International Cuisine is the Western style main meal service;
- The ‘A la carte’ menu is the food menu for any time that you may be hungry other than the main meal service. You can order this whenever you want, up to 1.5 hours before landing. At this point the cabin crew will end their service, and so you can’t order food at that point.
I ended up choosing the Pork Cutlet Sandwich and orange juice, which was brought to me about 5 minutes later, heated up. It was quite delicious, and was enough to sustain me until dinner.
One note about the tray table. It comes out of the console at an angle, and then swivels into place at the end. While getting it out is not an issue thanks to some kind of spring mechanism, I found it rather unintuitive to get it back into place, and had to give it several tries to get it back into the stowed position. The problem is where you stop swiveling and push it back at that same angle. The angle is not intuitive and you may find yourself trying your hardest pushing at various angles before finally finding one that works.
JAL’s bedding is adequate: basically comfortable
After the snack I stayed awake and watched the movie, but at some point I got tired and decided to go to bed.
I think my expectations for the bedding were a little too high. As it turns out, the bedding you get is okay. I don’t think it’s the best you’ll get. The pillow was a little flimsy in my mind, though of course more substantial than what you’d get in economy. The blanket felt fairly soft and was fairly thick, and I also received something like a thin mattress pad, though it wouldn’t really pass as a mattress per se. I do think some of this is in sync with what I’d generally noticed in Japanese hotels, as I rarely liked the pillows. I was often provided two pillows, the first of which (placed on the bottom) was very hard and uncomfortable, with a second pillow on top that by itself was rather thin and flimsy.
I made my bed, but stupidly I did not realize that you can be provide with an actual mattress. This was not proactively offered and I didn’t think to ask, since a light, blanket-like cover was offered, so I thought that was all that would be provided. It’s only on my flight to Boston that I realized that the mattress pad can be provided, so keep this in mind when you fly JAL!
By now I’ve come to the realization that I’m generally not a great sleeper on planes. I always imagined that if I fly business class and can actually lie down, that will solve the problem, but it seems I still don’t sleep so well. The crew kept the cabin on the warmer side and without the mattress I found the seat fairly comfortable but not so much that it was easy for me to fall asleep. I did eventually, after some twisting and turning.
JAL business class meal service
I believe I ended up sleeping a few hours – perhaps 3-4 hours or so. It probably took me 3-4 hours to fall asleep, though. However, it wasn’t long after I woke up that the cabin lights were turned on, signaling dinner service starting soon. One thing I was really looking forward to on this flight was the food, since I had already seen some reviews and impressions before, and these looked amazing. Fortunately, the food did not disappoint.
First the flight attendant came by to conform my order, which she did get wrong at first. I think she got confused because of the awkward location of seat numbers on this plane: normally the number of your seat is right next to your door, or the edge of any sort of privacy partition, for clarity. On this plane it seemed as though there are indeed seat numbers to the left, immediately adjacent of your door, but they are not actually the number of your seat, but rather of the seat in front of you. For your seat number, you need to look at the back of your suite, at the number that’s just left of the door of the seat behind you. I believe the flight attendant made this mistake initially, but then corrected and confirmed the right meal: The Japanese traditional ‘Washoku’ meal.
I sneakily asked for a drink before dinner service and while the flight attendant initially asked if I was okay waiting for meal service to ramp up, she ultimately brought me my order: JAL’s SkyTime drink, which I quickly became a fan of. A hot towel was provided shortly after, to wash your hands:
The Washoku meal (like the Western meal) consisted of three courses. But before that, some mixed nuts and olives were served. I took a glass of Champagne with that (Yes I did eventually start drinking alcohol on this flight).
Once cleared the next dish was the first course, which was a bento box of sorts with six small dishes:
From top left to bottom right we have, as per the menu: (1) Simmered chicken balls in miso soup (I suppose that’s like a meat ball, not actually ‘chicken balls’); (2) Sweet and sour chicken with sweet potato and carrot; (3) Roast beef and grilled eggplant; (4) Mushroom dressed with tofu sauce and a roasted chestnut; (5) Smoked salmon with salmon roe; and (6) Steamed savory egg custard with scallop and ginkgo nut.
If anything, this is an incredibly pretty dish. A delight to look at, with delicate decorations and garnishing, a feast for the eye. I also liked the little plastic origami bird, which is actually a chopstick holder! Ingenious little detail that adds a fun element.
Suffice to say that the food was very tasty, though I was surprised by how cold it is. This dish is supposed to be served cold (I think) but it was really cold, to a point where it felt like it could have been heated a touch. The coldness detracted from experiencing the full flavors of the dishes. That said, it was tasty and I specifically enjoyed the smoked salmon and beef.
Next up was the main course:
The main course was described as ‘simmered pork with grated radish and tomato sauce’ and ‘salt-grilled yellow tail’, both with vegetables. On the side are some Japanese style pickles, as well as miso soup in the covered bowl and steamed rice wrapped in a leaf. This dish was warm. The pork and fish were good (though the fish perhaps a little overdone) and I much enjoyed the soup as well. Last came the dessert:
This was a banana and cherry cobbler, which was delicious. I have something of a sweet tooth, and was very happy with this sweet end to a very nice meal. This was paired with a cup of green tea, which was tasty, but beyond that, I loved the presentation. The combination of the green tea with the white cup and black saucer was very eye catching.
Overall, the meal was quite delicious and, while it may not look like it, it was a lot of food! I felt very full toward the end. This was a nice first meal on my Japan vacation.
JAL Wifi service is free but is comically complicated to access
Once all the dishes were cleared, I decided to see if I could get some work done (or at least write some noted for this review). For this I needed to connect to the onboard wifi, which is free for business class passengers. Unfortunately, this is comically difficult… They really ought to simplify this procedure! To give you an idea, there is a booklet that provides a stepwise explanation on how to get connected, with no less than 12 steps… Surely JAL could make this easier?
The problem here is that, rather than simply provide you a voucher which you use to ‘buy’ a wifi pass, you actually have to generate that code for yourself. To do this, you have to navigate to a special website, register with your flight details, generate the code, then go back to the JAL wifi page, and enter the code there to get connected. If you’d like to switch between devices, you’d also need to generate yet another account to do so. As such, the process requires something like 10-12 separate steps, which feels like they could be massively simplified.
The good news is that I did get connected. The worse news is that speeds were not particularly good. Frequently the speed was very slow and pages would not or barely load, so the wifi was not particularly useable as such. The flight was also entirely full, so I imagine this was a bandwidth issue. So, ultimately, I decided to watch another movie: “Fly me to the moon”, which was delightful. Can recommend!
Now here I stumbled into an issue… After the movie I decided to watch some shorts, when suddenly the entertainment system shut down, and restarted. It brought me back to the welcome screen, and as I proceeded to follow the steps, it restarted again. This happened again, at which point I called the flight attendant. She stood with me watching the system reboot yet again, and then she got the purser, who was able to restart the system on her end. Once she did that, it seemed things had corrected themselves, so perhaps it was just a temporary glitch.
Closing in on Tokyo: descent, landing and arrival
As we were closing in on Tokyo, the flight attendant came by to alert me to that fact and that soon they would stop service, and whether I wanted something. Always a sucker for more food, I ordered the ‘special curry’, which was noted to be an ‘A350 exclusive’, and another glass of the SkyTime drink:
The curry was a very tasty and hearty meal to end my flight with, and I much enjoyed it. That said, the dish was not heated through properly. Part of the dish was piping hot, and another part was lukewarm. I feel as though the flight attendant was perhaps in a hurry, but this seems like an oversight. Still, the food was good, so I was happy!
Soon after, the flight attendant came by to remove the empty dish, and I went back to the lavatory to change back into my original clothing. Back at my seat, it seemed we’d be arriving from a southern direction, flying over the bay toward HND. I took advantage of the eye mask that was provided, which became hot upon opening the package and made for a very refreshing feeling. I wish more airline would provide this. I do apologize for the rather bad photo, but so be it…
It was pitch black outside so I couldn’t really take any pictures. Fortunately JAL does offer the tail camera on the A350, so I followed along as we descended into Haneda. Below the view about a minute before touchdown:
After touchdown we taxied over to terminal 3 in about 10 minutes, we parked and the engines were turned off. I believe first class passengers were able to deplane first, but I think this would have happened through the first set of doors and I never saw them. Business class passengers deplaned through the second set of doors, and as I walked to immigration, I was able to snap a last shot of this beauty:
A few thoughts on the service
My opinion on the service is probably controversial. Most reviews I read about JAL rave about the service. In my experience, the flight attendants were responsive, attentive, polite and helpful. However, overall, I came away a little disappointed. Given all reviews I read were jubilant about JAL’s service, I think my expectations may have been unrealistic…
That said, my interactions with the crew were good – it’s just that it didn’t go beyond that, which is very much what other reviewers seemed to suggest. Flight attendants were always smiling, were polite, gave me what I requested and at least attempted to fulfill my request, generally speedy and without much hassle. However, I didn’t see much of the proactivity that JAL is touted for, and I didn’t think the flight attendants were particularly warm or personable.
On the other hand, I did sometimes feel like my expectations weren’t met, such as during dinner: the various courses came at a steady pace. While flight attendants were always smiling, it felt like they were in a rush. I also expected some explanations as to what was placed in front of me, as I had experienced on SAS and KLM, but with JAL they simply placed the dish in front of me and left. All these airlines provide menus, mind you, so it’s not like on other airlines explanations are necessary because there is no menu to look at.
Why might the service have been this way? I think there may be three reasons. First, the flight was delayed by over an hour, so perhaps the cabin crew was a little stressed out. Second, the business class cabin is very big, with 54 seats, and the flight was completely full, so they have many other passengers to serve. The ‘time spent epr passenger’ decreases because of this.
Third, I think the height of the walls of the suite are a double-edged sword: they give fantastic privacy and make you feel very cosy, which is great for sleeping. But for most other parts of the flight when you’d like more interaction with the crew, I found this something of a hindrance, and I think it’s part of the reason why the service sometimes didn’t seem so great. Of course there is the crew call button, and a flight attendant was at my seat in an instant when I pressed it. But, this is hardly a proactive service, which is one of the things others praise on JAL.
But, to end this section on a happy note: I have to commend the flight attendants that helped me resolve the issue with the entertainment system. They stood with me for a good 15 minutes, and showed a lot of patience. Throughout they were friendly and courteous and very apologetic.
Summary
Overall, I look back at this flight with mixed feelings. I do think my expectations were too high, following several reviews I had read. On the one hand, the seat and the plane in general are great. The seat is full of nice features, I liked the design and finished, and the technology is good as well. The seat is comfortable and you have a lot of privacy within your little suite. it’s perfect for the long flight, where you’d wanna sleep, work, or watch a movie by yourself.
For the service, in all honesty I feel it could be better. As I explained, I think the walls of the suite, the awkward flight time and the delay we experienced all contributed to this. The flight attendants were all perfectly professional, reliable and helpful, but I also find that interactions were somewhat short and unceremonious, and I suppose I was hoping for more personable, organic interactions. Having traveled around Japan for 3 weeks following this flight, I’ve certainly been able to find that – maybe not in the same ‘apple pie’ way that we can get in the US, but I wasn’t expecting that of course.
So all in all, I would certainly recommend flying to Japan with JAL on board their A350. But perhaps don’t believe every review you find out there.
Points to Seats 
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