MikeFly
Jul 2, 02, 6:48 am
Gotta love that three letter city code! Just discovered the censoring on FT. The code for Fukuoka is F*U*K. Hope that gets past! This was my first time doing a strictly domestic flight within Japan and was pleasantly surprised!
We bought out tickets at the walk up counter at Haneda, Tokyo’s in city airport, with preexisting reservations. Amazingly enough when I went online to try and book a one way ticket it came up with a fare of approx $250, when my Japanese host did the same on a Japanese web site he got the same flight for less than $130! Always good to have the local contacts who know the ropes.
Security was next. My host went through carrying basically all the same electronic paraphernalia as me and nothing. I go through and have to send my laptop and bag through again. All this time Japanese women are saying things to me I do not understand with my two words of Japanese. Thankfully sign language workedJ
No time to check out the lounge. Besides that, as JL is not a 1W member, I don’t think my EXP card would have gotten us in. I would lie to have tried though. We headed directly to the gates to wait for boarding. There was approximately a ten-minute delay in boarding this DC-10. There were plenty of announcements about the delay and apologies as well. When boarding started everyone split into two lines and fed their own boarding passes into the reader and the stub was handed to you by an agent with a bow. As I was heading to the jetway an agent approached me and told me I could not take my roll on aboard. She did it in such a nice way that I did not even think of arguing with herJ Even though I did not know why, as the flight was not full (maybe 2/3) and my bag was of standard size. Our seats were in row 29 middle section, of a very old appearing DC-10. I did not have a chance to check the plague to see what year it was built but it was OLD. Legroom was non-existent! I noticed that an exit row behind us had all three seats empty. I wanted to move right away but my Japanese host said that we need to ask first! The flight attendant came by and she said to please wait until the doors closed. After they closed the doors she came over and escorted us to our new seats with virtually unlimited leg room!!!!
At this point it may be helpful to point out that I was the only Westerner aboard the flight. While we were taxiing the Purser came up and thanked me for flying JL in English. Shortly afterwards a FA came up and offered me an English newspaper!! This in economy before take-off!!! I was very impressed.
Despite the age of the plane it was equipped with the nose wheel mounted camera so you could watch the taxi and take-off and then switched to a down view camera after the gear was retracted. A nice feature – add that to a UA channel 9 and it would be perfect http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
After take-off, the flight attendants quickly came around with a full beverage service. Then came through again! Also throughout the relatively short flight they walked through the cabin (I repeat economy) offering newspapers and additional drinks. Amazing!! U.S. carriers would have had the announcement that due to the short flight it would be a fast break service and you have your choice of three things no one wants anyway.
Landing was uneventful and luggage came out quickly and the luggage tag was collected upon exiting in *** . I asked it for it back as a souvenir http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
Tomorrow, I fly back to HND, but on ANA, it will be interesting to see the difference if any. I’ll post a briefer trip report about it soon.
Edited to try and explain the *** in the post!
[This message has been edited by MikeFly (edited 07-02-2002).]
[This message has been edited by MikeFly (edited 07-02-2002).]
We bought out tickets at the walk up counter at Haneda, Tokyo’s in city airport, with preexisting reservations. Amazingly enough when I went online to try and book a one way ticket it came up with a fare of approx $250, when my Japanese host did the same on a Japanese web site he got the same flight for less than $130! Always good to have the local contacts who know the ropes.
Security was next. My host went through carrying basically all the same electronic paraphernalia as me and nothing. I go through and have to send my laptop and bag through again. All this time Japanese women are saying things to me I do not understand with my two words of Japanese. Thankfully sign language workedJ
No time to check out the lounge. Besides that, as JL is not a 1W member, I don’t think my EXP card would have gotten us in. I would lie to have tried though. We headed directly to the gates to wait for boarding. There was approximately a ten-minute delay in boarding this DC-10. There were plenty of announcements about the delay and apologies as well. When boarding started everyone split into two lines and fed their own boarding passes into the reader and the stub was handed to you by an agent with a bow. As I was heading to the jetway an agent approached me and told me I could not take my roll on aboard. She did it in such a nice way that I did not even think of arguing with herJ Even though I did not know why, as the flight was not full (maybe 2/3) and my bag was of standard size. Our seats were in row 29 middle section, of a very old appearing DC-10. I did not have a chance to check the plague to see what year it was built but it was OLD. Legroom was non-existent! I noticed that an exit row behind us had all three seats empty. I wanted to move right away but my Japanese host said that we need to ask first! The flight attendant came by and she said to please wait until the doors closed. After they closed the doors she came over and escorted us to our new seats with virtually unlimited leg room!!!!
At this point it may be helpful to point out that I was the only Westerner aboard the flight. While we were taxiing the Purser came up and thanked me for flying JL in English. Shortly afterwards a FA came up and offered me an English newspaper!! This in economy before take-off!!! I was very impressed.
Despite the age of the plane it was equipped with the nose wheel mounted camera so you could watch the taxi and take-off and then switched to a down view camera after the gear was retracted. A nice feature – add that to a UA channel 9 and it would be perfect http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
After take-off, the flight attendants quickly came around with a full beverage service. Then came through again! Also throughout the relatively short flight they walked through the cabin (I repeat economy) offering newspapers and additional drinks. Amazing!! U.S. carriers would have had the announcement that due to the short flight it would be a fast break service and you have your choice of three things no one wants anyway.
Landing was uneventful and luggage came out quickly and the luggage tag was collected upon exiting in *** . I asked it for it back as a souvenir http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
Tomorrow, I fly back to HND, but on ANA, it will be interesting to see the difference if any. I’ll post a briefer trip report about it soon.
Edited to try and explain the *** in the post!
[This message has been edited by MikeFly (edited 07-02-2002).]
[This message has been edited by MikeFly (edited 07-02-2002).]