JL has a subsidiary called Axess, which offers an online reservation service, Axess Travellers. This company is partially (a quarter -- I think) owned by, and linked with, AMR's Sabre.
This allows one to book on almost any booking class, so long as the airline does not establish special rules banning such reservation (for instance, booking by local agents only). You also have to meet various other ticketing rules that go along with low-cost tickets. Booking normal tickets is relatively easy, as you can perhaps imagine.
I tried AC's L class booking and it seems to work all right. I got 'HK' (seat booked) in a few minutes. AC taks a little bit of time for confirmation, because it is not one of those ''direct-acess'' carriers. (Direct-access carriers include oneworld airlines except CX, NW, CO, TG, UA etc. and of course JL.) Direct-access carriers provide immediate confirmation.
For JL, you can even show how many seats are left for booking FFP award flights except for the first class.
I am right now in NYC and can access this service via the Net.
This, however, is a fee service. (6,000 yen per six months, which comes down to 1,000 yen, around 9 U.S. dollars, per month). It is perhaps available for those who live in Japan or who can make payments by those credit cards issued in Japan.
The initial interface is in Japanese but once you get into the service itself (type your ID, PIN, and then 3 for reservation and JALCOMI for booking internaitonal flights, JALCOMD for flights in Japan), it is all command-driven using alphabets.
For available seats, AS and then the segement, for instance, YYZYVR, and date, 10FEB, and the carrier *AC.
You then get a list of available seats in each booking class. For the above flight, it listed J, C, Y, M, B, H,V, besides L.
It's handy, for sure, as you can make, change and cancel reservations almost anytime anywhere. (It is not a major online service and you encounter occasional service breakdowns -- unannounced, that is.) You can also do all other things that travel agents do such as preboarding seat assignments, meal request, FFP number registrations, fare search, fare rule check for each booking class, fare computation based on routes, etc.
[This message has been edited by Chiangi (edited 01-09-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Chiangi (edited 01-09-2000).]