Flying from BOS ---> Tokyo in May --> Which airline should I take ?
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2004
Programs: Amanjunkie
Posts: 752
Flying from BOS ---> Tokyo in May --> Which airline should I take ?
I can fly out either from boston or New York. Which airline has the most comfortable seats, best service, new airplanes on this route.
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
#2
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: TYO
Programs: Tokyo Monorail Diamond-Encrusted-Platinum
Posts: 9,622
Originally Posted by GK1998
I can fly out either from boston or New York. Which airline has the most comfortable seats, best service, new airplanes on this route.
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
If you fly out of New York, then you have some non-stop options with Star Alliance carriers - ANA and UA. I have plenty of recent experience with UA. My ANA experiences are rather out-of-date now. So my "comparison" is based on only half the required information:
I believe that UA in E+ has more legroom. ANA appears to have better IFE, but I like to sleep as much as possible - and I can't see much difference there. After the long flight to NRT in Y, you're going to come out feeling a little frazzled, whichever way...
UA service varies - I enter the plane with low expectations and sometimes have a wonderful surprise. (Plenty of anecdotes on the UA forum to support this).
ANA service (in my out-of-date experience) was more consistent. Always polite, but geared to a Japanese audience.
I find that my chance of op-upgrade (as a UA mileage plus member) is best on UA flights out of SFO. (I Used to get the occasional upgrade even as a 1P)
OTOH, the folks at NRT and ORD never upgraded me.
ANA fares seem to be consistently higher - but perhaps that's not an issue.
#3
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Wayne, NJ USA
Programs: UA Million Miler, Lifetime United Club member
Posts: 2,174
Don't forget CO out of EWR with BusinessFirst (if you are flying business class). They are generally considered to have the best service to Japan out of the NYC area.
#5
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Programs: AA Plat, BA, DL, Frontier, NWA, SWA, UA, HHonors Gold, Priority Club Plat, Choice Priv, BW, Diners
Posts: 1,554
Originally Posted by GK1998
I can fly out either from boston or New York. Which airline has the most comfortable seats, best service, new airplanes on this route.
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
I have Swiss Travelclub Silver membership, so would preferrably take a Star Alliance carrier. Unfortunatley I'm travelling in Y , so any suggestions and ideas are highly appreciated.
Thanks
So the key to getting the most comfortable seats is choosing the airline which lets you choose the most comfortable seats!
I'm not sure, for example, how exit row access works within Star Alliance. If you can only get exit row access on Swiss, gosh, maybe Swiss would be more comfortable, even if a longer flight (assuming Swiss can get you to Tokyo through Zurich, that is; I'm not that familiar with their routes). If Swiss Silver gets you exit row access on other Star Alliance metal, that would widen your "comfortable seat" options.
Then with UA, you can buy Economy Plus Access for $299/year. That gets you access to a "premium economy" section which, short of exit row seats at least, is likely to be more comfortable than any "ordinary" economy seat.
Also, get familiar with www.seatguru.com -- while it doesn't cover all airlines, for the airlines that it does cover it'll give you a very good idea of which seats are better than average and which seats are especially horrible -- and why -- for many airplanes in each airline's fleet. You'll find, for example, that in exit rows some seats are much better than others, and that there are SCATTERED seats on some planes, outside of exit rows, that are much better than average if you can give up, for example, floor storage.