Originally Posted by
TonySCV
AA in J is a pretty nice ride, and soft product has steadily improved over the last few years. It's not SQ or CX, but I think AA is perfectly adequate in comparison to JL.
I agree AA in J is adequate, but the soft product is way below JL. For example
* quality of wine, champagne and sake
* quality of food (though I've only had the Japanese menu on JL, four times so far in 2009. I can get western food more easily at home)
* quality of service. Flight attendants are uniformly friendly and helpful. They serve directly on trays from the galley, not off of clunky carts. Little things like that I find very important.
* quality of second meal service. It is from a large "on demand" menu (both western and japanese) on JAL.
I have less experience with this, but from what I've seen, the gap between the soft product in F is even larger. The only time I was ever sorry to get off a 12 hour flight was on NRT-ORD on JL a couple years ago.