It’s been almost a decade since my last Japan Airlines flight. In that time, most of our family travel has been with carriers determined to get as many bodies into a space as possible. On an older but very fresh B777-300, there was space to spare, so much so our 10 year-old immediately likened it to Business Class. Until she sat down.
What makes a good flight? Timely arrival? Reasonable service? Good entertainment? Decent food? If these are your standards, Japan Airlines’ current offering from Sydney to Haneda delivers. It also helps if you are suffering from a self-induced exhaustion brought about by last-minute packing.
Managing booking
We ordered special meals a week or so out with no dramas via our phones. When it came to the free seat selection, my husband, who had booked separately, only saw one row of three available seats while I saw more.
Despite a very full flight I managed to score one of my favourite seats on a plane: the aisle before the rows go from three seats to two, meaning I could break my no-reclining rule for day flights knowing I wouldn’t be inconveniencing the people behind me.
Checking in online from our phones was also super easy to navigate.
Departure airport experience
We saw the night before our departure that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes, which meant we had an extra thirty minutes to sleep in. A blessing if you’ve got little ones who normally don’t wake before eight.
A shout out here to the M8 tunnel, which provides a direct toll-road route to Sydney Airport for those of us who no longer live a short bike ride from the airport. It’s like a private road to the departure gate.
Thanks to Sydney Airport signposting the airlines, our Uber driver was able to drop us at the entrance closest to our check-in counter.
Once there, we headed to the kiosk, printed our boarding passes and made our way to security and customs. A breeze with no check-in luggage.
From there, we slathered on some exxy Duty Free face cream, popped some exxy Duty Free oil in our hair and sat down for breakfast near our very close gate.
Some last-minute shopping easily filled the time until boarding and meant that we could be on our feet before having to sit for the flight.
Seat and cabin comfort + entertainment offerings
The 3-3-3 configuration featured seats with 33-inch pitch and 47cm width. The cabin felt spacious in the sense that passengers weren’t constantly squeezing past each other in the aisles.
I did remove all the magazines and place these in the overhead compartment to give us an extra inch or so. I left the safety card and vomit bag, of course.
The seat itself wasn’t the most comfortable with la noticeable lack of cushioning in the lumbar section which my daughter particularly felt.
The back-of-seat screen was small, but my daughter loved the corded controller. As did I, given the screen refused to recognise my fingers, so being able to use actual buttons proved helpful.
There was a decent selection of films, and the Japanese offerings were particularly good. I mentally earmarked several to watch later, though there was no option to save them to a profile.
That said, navigating the system was slow. I slept through much of the flight so most of my entertainment time was spent trying to find the point where I’d previously fallen asleep.
I personally don’t mind a smaller screen, as there were useful compartments in the seatback that were handy for things like saline spray and mints.
The lavatory closest to us, directly behind our row, went out of operation early in the flight. In practice this turned out to be a blessing as it reduced noise, smells and foot traffic nearby.
Food and beverage service
We ordered Vegetarian Oriental meals while my daughter opted for a straight vegetarian meal, though she ultimately preferred ours.
Snacks arrived about an hour into the flight accompanied by a choice of beverage. I opted for the Japan Airlines signature peach and grape juice which was very sweet but paired nicely with the osembe rice crackers and nut assortment.
Upon delivery, a member of cabin crew advised she normally doesn’t provide the snack with special meals but asked us to check the ingredients just in case. She also provided us with a list of beverages to choose from.
The two full meals were sizeable and generally very good, though they included a couple of items we rarely touch and always suspect will end up in landfill: vegan jelly of questionable texture and a soy milk poppa.
My daughter particularly mourns two things. First, that vegetarian child meals do not exist. Japan Airlines’ regular child meals are famously cute. Second, why her dessert, despite not being vegan, was also the same strange-textured jelly.
An additional ice-cream was served to the rest of the cabin. When we asked if our daughter could have one we were told she was not allowed because she had ordered a special meal. Eventually one was provided after another passenger cancelled theirs.
While loading logistics are understandable, a replacement dessert for passengers with special meals would seem like an easy win.
Other snacks offered throughout the flight included pizza-flavoured popped crisps, chocolate and vegan oat and cranberry biscuits.
Service
Efficient and friendly, the crew were quick to respond to requests and kept the cabin running smoothly.
Towards the end of the flight they stopped by with a gift for our daughter, offering a choice between a luggage tag and a model plane. Thankfully she chose the plane, which her aviation-enthusiast parents quietly hoped she would.
Overall
Japan Airlines’ Sydney to Haneda service does not try to reinvent the economy class experience. Instead it delivers something increasingly rare on long-haul routes: space, calm and competence.
The aircraft may not feature the latest technology and the entertainment system shows its age, but the fundamentals remain strong. Seats feel reasonably spacious, the service is attentive and the food is generous, even if special meal logistics could use some refinement.
For families travelling to Japan, the overall experience is reliable and comfortable, particularly when compared with the increasingly dense cabin layouts found across much of the industry.
The writer was not sponsored by Japan Airlines, and the airline did not review or approve the content before publishing.
