So, no one seems to be interested in reading these trip reports that do not accompany pictures. I get that... I am also one of those who like to flip through only pictures and read later. But for current given circumstances, I have no pictures to upload or have good internet connection to upload pictures. So, if you guys can bear with me on few more of these posts without pictures, I can get those nice set of pictures updates to these posts.

As mentioned in my introduction, there were several reasons in choosing DONE4 as my first ATW ticket. Having invested so much time and money on *Alliance, the obvious choice was to go with CRTWSTAR2, but I couldn't give up the opportunity to fly on quality airlines I have not flown before... and JL is one of them. Actually, all of these OW carriers that I have selected to fly in this ATW are carriers that I have not flown before... so this trip awarded with a lot of "firsts."

To start off on my around the world, I took a flight from my home city, Daegu, South Korea to ICN. KE has a daily service on this route with no other competition... but the fare is around 70,000 KRW so it's not too bad despite the monopolization. KE only awards 160 miles for this route regardless of how much you pay (though there really isn't much difference - two types of fares offered C or Y). The flight is only 35 minutes and just a quick drink service is offered. So, there is nothing much to write but to say that I've flown this route more than 20 times since it was implemented, but it's very inconvenient if you have late hour flights ex-ICN as there is only one flight a day in the early morning. Daegu has seen a lot of flight cuts (domestic flights) due to KTX (Korean version of TGV). There used to be almost hourly service to Seoul Gimpo back in the day, but now all of the GMP flights have been suspended due to non-profitability. Alas, when you can reach Seoul in 99 minutes by KTX, there is really no point of flying.

JL has about four to five flights per day to NRT from ICN and two daily flights to HND from GMP. But if one wants to have international connection ex-NRT, you need to fly out of ICN as xONEx rules indicate that NRT/HND and GMP/ICN are not recognized as co-terminals so one/two segments will be used up as ground transportation. So, convenience of flying out of GMP or HND is out of the question on xONEx. I was booked for JL 954 leaving at 2PM, but wanted to switch to the 12PM flight as I wanted to meet up with a friend who is dropping off her sister at NRT around 2PM. However, today, all of the flights are oversold. So, I had to just check-in for the 2PM flight. Few friends of mine were also at ICN so I spent the odd hours before my flight (arrived in ICN around 9AM) with them.

When the flight time approached, I cleared the immigration and headed to the JL Sakura lounge in the Concourse A (all foreign carriers depart from the new concourse A). Sakura lounge in ICN is small but has nice tarmac views (most ICN lounges have this except for the new OZ lounge in this concourse). There was not much to do in the lounge so I went for brief shopping for sun glasses and proceeded to the boarding gate for boarding.

The ICN-NRT JL flight today was on 777-200 configured with the older style recliner. The flight was completely full and I had 1A. The flight itself was non-eventful but the service level and the professionalism maintained throughout the flight by the cabin crew were top notch. American and European carriers really must learn from these Asian carriers in providing service and making customers feel at home. Some may disagree, but at least this my personal opinion on this matter.

The flight arrived about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and I was back in the NRT T2 for the first time in 4 years or so since I took NH flight (back when NH operated out of T2) to ICN. T2, compared to the new *A terminal in NRT looks very outdated and requires renovation in the coming years if it were to serve as a OW hub.

Anyway, my bags were out early with the priority tags (JL has several of these priority tags and I was surprised that first 40 bags or so were tagged as First Class) and left the customers within 20 minutes of landing. My friend was waiting for me at the greeting area and I was off to the Tokyo city to spend a night before my NRT-DEL flight the next morning.