20170319: JL26: Hong KonG » HaNeDa

Date: 2017/03/19

Flight: JL26
DEP/Actual Push Back: 1540HKT/1538HKT
ARR/Touch Down: 2025JST/2004JST

Aircraft/Registration: 777-200/JA710J

Class: Business (Restricted Fare)

Seat: JAL SKY SUITE III

Prologue

This is the return flight from Hong Kong

Pre-boarding

No bag to check and I had printed out the boarding pass at the hotel.  So, I went straight through the formalities.

Lounge
JAL customers were directed to the Qantas lounge.  It is spacious, and always empty this time of the day (~14:00HKT)  Ample hot foods and beverages.

At the Gate
Today's gate was 25.  Boarding was to start from 1510.  At 1457, when I was already at the gate, they announced that boarding wouldn't start till 1520.  In the end, boarding started at 1515.

On Board

Seats
Today's seat was 11K.  Note to myself; this seat has one less window than others. Don't use this seat again.   The aircraft was a retrofitted 777-200 with the latest "Sky Suite III"  See my previous flight for more details.

Food

I had requested a vegetarian meal at Haneda.  Other than the bun sealed in a plastic bag, which was stale, the rest was fresh and tasty.

Vegetarian Meal

Appetizer; mushrooms on mashed potato

Main Course: beans, carrots, squash, onions, mash potato

A tiny salad.

Service

The business class cabin was 90% full.  The crew was more interested in promoting in-flight shopping.  They were so eager to sell that the chief purser interrupted everyone's movies by announcing the start of the in-flight shopping.  I wish they wouldn't do that.

In the beginning of the flight, a flight attendant offered newspapers. I asked for English-language ones and she said only "New York Times" and "Japan News" were available.  Though I was hoping for Financial Times and/or Wall Street Journal, I took New York Times.  A few minutes later, I saw another flight attendant walked past on her way to the main cabin with both Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.  It was too late to flag her down so I asked the flight attendant, the one who said they only had NYT and Japan News, for a Wall Street Journal.  It took her a few minutes to get one for me.  

Epilogue

JAL's business class product to/from HKG is mediocre. Their latest and greatest offering of hardware, Sky Suite III is a mistake. Their only advantage over competitors like CX is that it's cheaper to fly JAL.

Bibliography

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/inter/service/business/seat/skysuite3.html

https://www.jal.co.jp/en/jalmile/jgc/

20170315: JL29: HaNeDa » HongKonG

Date: 2017/03/15

Flight: JL29

DEP/Actual Push Back: 1005JST/1006JST

ARR/Actual Touch Down: 1415HKT/1406HKT

Aircraft/Registration: 777-200/JA711J

Class: Business (Restricted Fare)

Seat: JAL SKY SUITE III

Prologue

This is one of my regular, periodic flight to Hong Kong.  Booking was done on JAL's website which is a pain to use.   Painful because its design is that of typical Japanese-design from the 90s.

Pre-boarding

Getting a Special Meal at Check-in

Took a look at the in-flight dinning menu and decided to try the vegetarian meal again.  As I'd learned from my trip to KL, one had to phone JAL for a special meal.  It's a shame that their non-toll-free phone lines are only opened from 0800 till 1900.

The business class check in counter wasn't busy and I was led to an available counter immediately. Once I got my boarding pass, I asked the lady for a vegetarian meal.  What followed was the expected banter; that I was supposed to request the special meal at least 24 hours in advance and I countered that their phone lines are only operational between 0800 and 1900.  The end result was that she got me special meals for my return flight too.  She was a lot nicer about it than that lady in Narita.

The lines for security were long.  Not unusual for a weekday morning.  Haneda International Terminal is reaching its capacity.   The check-in lady advised me to use the priority line (as I held the OneWorld Sapphire status.)  Yet there was a bit of a wait.

Lounge
Seeing how long those security lines were, I was expecting the Sakura Lounge to be packed.  But it wasn't as busy as I'd feared. The usual breakfast fair was on offer; scrambled eggs, sausages, hash brown, fresh salads, rice, Japanese curry.  A good hot breakfast could be have.

At the Gate
Boarding was supposed to start at 0935 at gate 113.  At 0934, they announced that boarding had been delayed to 0945 due to aircraft not being ready or whatnot.  Boarding ended up starting from 0940. They had neglected to double-check my passport-boarding pass and let me on.

Noticed that there was a line for first class passengers though this flight didn't have a first class.

On Board

In-Your-Face Screen

Too Much Material

Seats

The aircraft was a retrofitted 777-200 with the latest "Sky Suite III"  When I first tried it in December 2016, I found it surprisingly cramped.  This time I figured out why; it's the huge fixed IFE screen and the white box behind it.  It's as if a CRT screen is housed in that box.  According to YouTube, similar seats on CX, and KLM have swing-out screens, doing away with that huge housing box taking up all that real estate, thus making the seat more spacious.  

The seat pocket for printed materials is far too narrow for the stuff JAL provided.  Even the seat pockets are inferior to those on CX, or AF.

Food

Delicious Appretizer

The vegetarian meal looked suspiciously like the one I got on my NRT » KUL flight.  The main course was essentially the same soy-meat-patty with saffron rice.  This time, the saffron rice was hard.   The desert was identical.  The appetizer (beans, mushrooms, melon) was delicious.

Familiar-looking Vegetarian Maim Course

Same Desert

Vegetarian Meal

Service

Flight attendants were more interested in pushing inflight shopping than say noticing that I needed more Perrier.  I had to flag down a flight attendant on her down the aisle selling duty-free items. What's worse, they had to interrupt my movie watching to announce the start of in-flight shopping.

Epilogue

The only reason I flew JAL was that they where cheaper than CX.  

Bibliography

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/inter/service/business/seat/skysuite3.html

CX524: HongKonG » NaRiTa

Miscellaneous
Date: 2014/08/01
Flight: CX524
DEP: 0100HKT, Actual (push-back): 0116HKT
ARR: 0625JST, Actual (touch-down): 0621JST
Class: Business
Fare: Restricted Business

Check-in
The Hong Kong in-town checkin was deserted a little before 23:00.  No issues.

Lounge
Cathay Pacific had a few lounges in HKG.  I went to the one closest to my gate, gate#30.  It was too warm, and noisy, and crowded.  Still it was better than the ones offered by JAL. The "quiet" section was more peaceful though it was still too warm.

Onboard
Equipment was a 777-300.  Business class cabin was around 80% full, surprisingly full for such a red-eye.  Business class seats were CX's "New Regional Business Class" seats" which were much better than those cubicles in a herringbone formation.  However, it's not lie-flat.  Far from it.  The panel covering the recessing storing the remote-control was in an odd location.  I flipped it open a few times by mistake.  It simple didn't afford the seat pitch and comfort to justify the price of a business class ticket.  This is especially bad for a red-eye flight.  I might as well have flown Premium Economy.

The in-flight service manager, over the P.A. system, welcomed passengers and reminded us all that we should store carry-ons properly, and that flight-attendants will not assist in storing over-sized, and/or overweight bags.  He then repeated the same message, a minute or two later.  Then, again. And again, till the door closed.  The repetition was annoying. especially bad for a red-eye flight, when I wanted to catch some sleep ASAP.

After air-borne, lights were turned off and I managed to doze off.  Woke about an hour before landing and requested dinner.  The flight attendant was concerned that they wouldn't be able to reheat the food in time and offered me fruits and cheese. They needed at least 20 minutes to reheat or heatup the food. I would suggest that Cathay does what JAL does; have on-board microwave ovens. In the end, the flight attendant brought me a fairly hot plate.  The bowl of rice was heated OK but it had dried up.

Verdict
Thumb DOWN.  The in-flight service manager repeating his announcement was most annoying. For the price of a business class ticket, the seats were a rip-off.