As of May of this year, Japan Airlines’s 777-300ER has officially returned on the San Francisco-Haneda route after being temporarily supplanted by the 787-8, bringing the total of of JAL 777 routes to the U.S. back up to two. I learned of this fact while I was leaving SFO on May 3rd, when I saw the Tsurumaru on a 777-300ER at the International A Pier as I walked to the end of Terminal 1. As the big Boeing is in its twilight with the Japanese flag carrier, I’m trying to get in more flights with it than I have been, on routes such as ORD-HND, HND-SYD, and HND-HEL. After Japan Airlines retired the 747s in 2011, the airline’s 777-300ER formed a quintessential part of planespotting for me at LAX, and its increasing absence from the JAL fleet is beginning to be felt. Given that the San Francisco-Tokyo route is a historic one for Japan Airlines, I figured that this would be a good way to get back into flying the Triple Seven with the airline.
Server: Solo
Airline: Japan Airlines
Origin: San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California (SFO)
Destination: Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan (HND)
Flight Number: JL1
Route: KSFO-RJTT
Seat: 8A (JAL Sky Suite)
Time En Route: 10 Hours 53 Minutes
Getting our look at our aircraft after clearing the TSA checkpoint. The A Gates of the International Terminal are pretty full this morning, with an Air India 777-300ER and a Singapore Airlines A350-900 bracketing our 777, plus a Korean Air 787-10 that’s scheduled to come in from Seoul within the hour. By the time we get going for Tokyo, the terminal will be an absolute zoo, as passengers are rushing to their flights or the baggage claim. Fortunately, Japan Airlines has consistently delivered a calm, tranquil experience in business class, and hopefully the trend will continue with our flight early this afternoon.
Taxiing behind Runways 01L/19R and 01R/19L. These runways are currently closed for construction, meaning that taxi times for departing flights are significantly longer than they’d otherwise be. Our hopes about our experience seem to be borne out so far. The cabin is fairly full, but not so much that it’s an irritation. Of course, we do have the advantage of being in one of JAL’s world-renowned Sky Suite business class seats, so that counts for something.
Got a screaming GE90 takeoff as JAPAN AIR 1 HEAVY gets airborne from Runway 28R. In the humid Bay Area air, condensation flickers in the inlet, dances on the leading edge of the wing, and produces prominent vortices from the wingtips. While the Trent XWBs of the A350-1000 are supposedly quite impressive, the XWB just doesn’t have quite the same presence as the GE90-115B, in our opinion. When the 777-300ER lands for the last time in Japan Airlines service, the airline will have lost something the likes of which it is extremely improbable to see again.
Climbing over Point Reyes as we head north along the California Coast. There’s few experiences like being next to a GE90-115B at climb thrust, so naturally, we’re soaking it up. Once we got above a couple thousand feet, we passed through the worst of the overcast, leaving only a moderately-thick layer of cirrostratus clouds to obscure the Sun.
Cruising at 34,000 feet over the North Pacific while we check out the menu. Japan Airlines’s in-flight dining has consistently been among the best we’ve encountered, with every meal a masterpiece of airline cuisine. The food alone puts it in the 4-star range of Skytrax, and combined with the private, spacious Sky Suite seat and wonderful cabin service, Japan Airlines’s 777-300ER business class is one of the best ways to travel to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Pretty cloudy where we are as we head southwest towards Japan, after completing the main arc of the flight across the Pacific. We got a relatively short power nap in, with the rumble of the big GEs providing us with some white noise. Now we’re starting Jurassic World: Rebirth to pass the time during the last couple hours or so of our flight.
Final approach over Tokyo Bay as the sound of the landing gear lowering fills our ears. We’re racing a company 737-800 landing on the south side of Haneda into the airport. It’s a bittersweet moment, arriving into HND on an airplane that will in the relatively near future see its last landing here.
Landing on Runway 34R at Haneda with a long line of aircraft waiting to depart behind us once we’re clear of the runway. The landing was pretty busy and the flight crew had to manhandle the rudder pedals to keep us on the centerline, but everything worked out in the end. The deceleration is swift, but not abrupt, speaking to both the power of the thrust reversers on the GE90s and the judicious use of ditto by the crew.
Crossing Runway 16R/34L on our way to Terminal 3, from which Japan Airlines operates its international flights in and out of Haneda. The cabin crew is doing the usual post-arrival briefing, with the exception of the announcement that we’ll be disembarking via both the L1 and L2 doors. While it doesn’t matter how many jetbridges are being used to us, the fact that they announced it to let us know in order to streamline getting off the aircraft is nice of them.
Deplaned from our aircraft at Gate 141. Now that the 747s, 777-200s and -200ERs, and 777-300s are gone, the 777-300ER is the Grand Old Lady of the Japan Airlines fleet, and she barely shows her age. Flying on the Bigfoot with the Tsurumaru on the tail is always a pleasure and never a chore, at least in business class. It’s also a pleasure that the window for which is rapidly closing, as more A350-1000s enter the fleet and more 777s are sent to the desert. Thus, we were pleased to fly on one for this trip to Tokyo, with the food, comfort, and service being top-notch, and we’ll do our best to get on another Japan Airlines 777 in the future.
