Last month, I was lucky to fly on JL 001’s new non-stop service from SFO-HND a mere five days after opening of HND for scheduled international flights.

As many have become accustomed to flying into NRT, I’ve taken the opportunity to write up a in-depth report on what it’s like to arrive into HND late at night as a precursor to what travelers can expect once AA starts flying JFK-HND next month.

The descent into HND flies directly over Tokyo Bay. If you’re like me who likes sitting at a window seat to view the outside of the aircraft, sitting on the starboard side will give you a magnificent view of night time Tokyo on approach to Haneda.

Landing will be on the new D runway which was made particularly for long-haul international flights. Since the surroundings of Haneda is pretty much developed already, the only available option was to create an artificial island for a runway long enough to handle landings and departures for long-haul international flights. Being the furthest away from the terminal it can take up to 20 minutes to taxi from the D runway to the jetbridge.

Also to note that at the time of my flight, 10 wide-body international flights arrive within one hour between 21:40-22:35, so air traffic will be very heavy at this time of hour. Addition of more flights next year such as AA’s JFK-HND, BA’s LHR-HND, AC’s YVR-HND, and Asian low cost carrier D7 will likely to add to more congestion as well. If you love plane-spotting though, coming back to Haneda at this hour will treat you to a great view of many planes landing within minutes of each other one-by-one from the new observation deck of Haneda. ^

Being a brand new international terminal, the secure area from the jetbridge to immigration is spacious and spotless, giving you a great welcome to Japan. Huge windows allow you to see all the aircrafts that’ve just landed and in the process of deplaning, but this is the second hint that up ahead will be huge lines for immigration. Being so new as it was a mere five days since it’s opening, I could tell there were still some bugs that needed to be fixed; some of the moving walkways were still being installed (or adjusted I presume) and some of the arrival displays were yet to be switched on. Considering Japan, I’m sure by this time they will have gotten the kinks out of those by the time AA starts flying into HND.

Now the part that surprised me was how small the immigration, baggage claim and customs (IBC) areas were. In contrast to NRT which has a very spacious IBC area, HND’s IBC was very small; too small if I may say, in comparison to how many flights they need to process in a short time. At first glance, the entire IBC area could not have been larger than 1/2 of the check-in counter areas of JFK T8.

As I said above, at the time that I arrived in Haneda on November 2010, there were already 10 international flights landing within the hour of 21:40-22:35. Considering 10 widebody international flights landing in the same hour, that can be as much as 2,000-3,000 people jammed packed into such a small area. It’s possible to double that easily once AA, BA, AC, and D7 comes on board at the same hour.

You will get through immigration faster if you are a Japanese national or have a foreign residence card for Japan, but for others, expect long lines to clear immigration as you’ll be sharing the line with other passengers from other flights; majority of them being South Koreans, Taiwanese, mainland Chinese, and Thai from places like GMP, TSA, PEK and BKK.

Same with baggage claim; there are only five baggage carousels which IMO, are too little to handle the mass influx of international planes that arrive at the same hour. Chances are likely that your baggage claim area will be shared with two, if not three carriers with a bunch of people crowding around to retrieve their bags. Expect more crowding in the area by the time AA starts flying JFK-HND service. If you happen to be a smoker, you’re in for an oasis as there’s an isolated smoking room right beside the baggage claim area for you to puff your carcinogenic death sticks as you wait for your bags to show up.

After collecting your bags, you then go through customs which isn’t much bigger either. Maybe it was because it was only five days since its opening, but there were only three customs officers trying to process thousands of passengers in a short time; majority of the time eaten up by Koreans, mainland Chinese and Thai with three or more huge bags and boxes, and Japanese ma and pa kettles returning from a vacation from Honolulu with tons of Hawaiian gifts to hand out to their friends and neighbors. Much like the movie "Up In the Air," look for lines that have well dressed Japanese businessmen; they pack light with only a carry-on or a laptop bag who are clearly well traveled frequent flyer elites on JAL or ANA.

I could tell the Haneda staff, immigration personnel, and customs officers were not prepared for this as I could see that they were all stressed out by the mass number of passengers they have to go through in a relatively short amount of time. I also overhead conversations between two senior Haneda staff officers in Japanese who were on their walkie-talkies that after experiencing this for the first week, they were clearly understaffed to handle this and that “management needs to know that they need to hire more personnel.” Let’s hope this report has been read by TIAT management by the time AA starts flying into HND.

After finally getting through customs, you’re pretty much scrapped for time to catch the last Keikyuu Line or Tokyo Monorail; Japanese public transportation maybe the best in the world in terms of technology and punctuality of time, but the concept of running them 24 hours has not clicked into their minds yet despite the fact that they are promoting HND to become a true 24 hour airport. The train stops running just a bit or right before midnight so there’s no time to dilly dally. With all the influx of passengers in a short amount of time, expect an hour of cushion time after arrival to get through IBC if TIAT haven’t figured out a solution to this by the time AA starts JFK-HND. That leaves very little time to catch the last train.

If you feel it’s a drag to schlep your bags to your hotel and if you still have ample time before the last train, you may want to head all the way to the left (right of on the map link above) where both JAL and ANA has a paid service to have your bags delivered to your hotel or your place of stay anywhere in Japan for about $20. You might also be entitled to several discounts if you hold certain types of Mastercards or if you are a member of JAL Mileage Bank or ANA Mileage Club (both of them free to join so sign up for it). If you can read Japanese, you can learn about this delivery service here; it’s actually a very nice service, don’t know why we don’t have this stateside.

Overall, the late night arrival experience at HND is not something that I look forward to for future trips. It’s all hustle and bustle, leaving no time to waste to get through IBC and catching the last train. If you’re a business traveler whose travel expenses are paid, then arriving at HND might be a good option as you can still hail a cab and have those expensed out. But for the regular traveler just traveling to Japan, I say stick with NRT for now; cab fares in Japan are friggin’ expensive and that’s pretty much the only option you’re left with if you miss the last train. This is moreso likely to be the case if your flight ends up departing later and arriving at HND later than scheduled, which is highly probable considering that AA is flying this out of JFK.

IMO, ANA’s LAX-HND service got this one right, instead of arriving like the rest in a crammed hour of 21:40-22:35 where thousands of passengers are crammed into a small IBC area and passengers scrambling to catch the last train, they calculated this flight to arrive at 5:00AM which is the perfect timing as there are very few flights landing at this time slot and just as the first trains start running in Metro Tokyo. If you don’t want a rushed experience and the stress dealing with whether you’ll get through IBC in time to catch the last train out of HND, take ANA’s LAX-HND flight instead of JL’s SFO-HND or AA’s JFK-HND.

Just my two cents.