For several decades I’ve been a fan of Cathay Pacific First Class. I’ve been fortunate to experience it many times. I’ve sampled almost all of the competition and I still hold it in highest esteem. Our outbound flight on SQ in the Suites proved to be stiff competition. SQ definitely won with that great suite/seat.
But in planning my return, I looked chose to sample JAL’s 777 First Class instead of my usual CX. The last time I flew JAL in First was in 1991. It was back in the olden days when the non-smoking section of first class was Row 1 and the smoking section was Row 2. Needless to say the entire first class section was “the smoking section.
JAL has started to fly their newest first class product to SFO from Haneda so I was eager to see how they measured up against CX and SQ. I looked online at the product and it looked pretty nice. I’m also a huge fan of Japanese food so I knew that I was in for a treat.
LOUNGE: Grade 5/10
I arrived at Haneda and quickly found the JAL First Class Lounge. Since I had started my breakfast in Beijing and lunch in Seoul at my friend’s flat, the first thing I needed was a shower to rinse off the day. The showers was nice but the shower room suffered from the BA plague of a warm bathroom. I had already broken a sweat by the time I put my clothes on.
The First Class lounge was slightly underwhelming overall. It reminded me of a nice Business Class Lounge. The food offerings were all buffet with no “a la carte” menu items. There was a chef making hamburgers but I expected a much higher quality of food in general. Even the sushi was not very inspiring. The pieces of fish were tiny and thus you could barely taste them. I think about the amazing food I’ve had the BA Concorde Lounge, EK First Lounge and CX First Wing. This was no where in the same league. I’d even say that EK’s Emirates Lounges at their non-Dubai outposts are much better than this “home base” First lounge.
Lounge food
There also wasn’t any staff offering refills of beverages. Even my dirty dishes layed around much longer than I would have liked.
I was very surprised at the whole lounge experience. My guard was up and was hoping that the inflight experience would be a big improvement.
BOARDING:
The gate was very near the lounge and boarding had started by the time I arrived. Luckily I did not have to wait to present my boarding pass and get onboard. I was greeted at the door and escort to my seat.
Almost immediately I was offered champagne and newspapers. As it was just after midnight, I decided to change into my comfy flying clothes rather than waiting until we were in the air. The flight attendants took this as a sign that I didn’t want the sleep suit. I later asked for one to take home for house guests.
The perfect way to start a flight
The seat was nice and wide which I love. I love sitting with one leg tucked under me and there was plenty of width to stretch out. The weirdest thing of all is that the seat had this weird open area between the seat and aircraft fuselage. Other airlines cover this with some sort of grill. But JAL leaves it open exposing all the wiring and tubing. The worst part was that everything was very dusty and dirty. A small sign was visible indicating that the area was not for storage! Yuck.
INFLIGHT SERVICE:
This flight is about 10 hours and leaves around midnight. Most airlines offer a “supper” menu giving the option of eating a meal after takeoff. The only proper meal that JAL offers in First Class was a “breakfast” prior to arrival at 8:00 p.m. California time. If you want to eat at any other time, you can choose from the snack menu. With an evening arrival, my goal was to stay awake for as much of the flight as possible.
So once in the air, I continued with the champers and ordered a couple of the snacks from the menu: caviar service and lobster roll.
The caviar arrived along with another one of the snacks that I hadn’t even ordered. The quality of the caviar was good and it helped remind me that I was in first class.
The lobster roll was much more bread than lobster. It was definitely a sub-par offering. The whole “meal” felt very much like a snack service. I also am not a fan or tan/brown tablecloths and napkins.
I ended the meal with a lovely tea service.
Time for more food
A little caviar and other bits
Mama loves caviar at 39,000 ft
A rather bready lobster roll
Tea time
I took a three hour nap but pushed myself to wake up so that I could sleep when I arrived home. JAL offered a fairly hard Japanese style mat to sleep on. I much prefer the memory foam mattresses of other airlines. It was not a great nap.
About one and a half hours before landing, I requested “breakfast” even though we were landing around 5. I happen to love Japanese breakfast and it was a very good meal. I really enjoyed all the offerings. The irony was that for most Americans, they would have never recognized the food as “breakfast”. The quality was excellent but the one tray presentation was slightly less than First Class.
Japanese breakfast
Closeup of the main
The sides
Miso soup
OVERALL: 6/10
Japan Airlines offers a product that easily beats out all the US carriers. The trouble is that their competition is ANA, Cathay Pacific and Singapore. Within these competitors, they trail the rear. I don’t think I would go out of my way to experience their First Class again when I can experience the great offerings of so many of their neighbors.
I’m sitting here now planning another trip to South Africa. A friend really wants to join me and visit Dubai. So I think another EK A380 First Class experience is coming. But I am debating how to get home. The worst part is that SQ and CX no longer fly first class to South Africa. I’m still tempted to flight Business JNB-HKG just to be able to have another flight with Cathay HKG-SFO in their First. We are also thinking about Lufthansa as the timing is among the best. These are good problems to have.
Our trip to Asia to climb Mt. Fuji was overall a great success. My son was really happy to experience more of Japan and a brief visit to China. We’ve also started talking about his next summer plans. His cousin Colin that also came with us to Asia and he might head off without any parents to Iceland. I think it’s time for him to start having his own adventures.