Originally Posted by
stephem
I have some F awards on ANA later in march (SFO-NRT-SFO) for my wife and I and we are thinking of using the Experience Japan fare to visit Sapporo (some late season runs at Niseko) after we spend a few days in Tokyo. We are planning to do HND-CTS but it would be more convenient to return to Narita and just connect to our NH8 flight home to the US. NH2154 arrives in NRT at 3:45pm and NH8 departs at 5:10pm, does anyone know what NH(domestic) to NH (intl) MCT is for Narita?
Also, I am mostly a OW flyer and they tend to do a nice job protecting on separate tickets in situations like this, in the case one of their flights is delayed and causes you to miss another of their flights. Is NH similar or do I need to build in a bigger buffer well beyond MCT?
Minimum connection time at NRT for domestic ANA to international ANA is 45 minutes. You should able to through check your baggage CTS-NRT-SFO, since it will be all ANA flights. Upon arrival at NRT on ANA domestic flight, there is dedicated security area for international connecting passengers which take you to dedicated passport control, which is separate from main passport control for NRT departing passengers.
Security and passport control at Japanese airports are usually very efficient. Unless you are traveling during major Japanese holidays, time to get through security and passport control at Japanese airports should be minimum. Again, you connection at NRT should be fine unless our travel is during major Japanese holiday. You have mentioned your travel is later in March. Lately visiting Japan during cherry blossom season has become very popular among non-Japanese tourist, which is in late March through early April. NRT is noticeably busier during that time compare with other time, but I do not expect busy like Golden Week during May. In case of missing flight at NRT, ANA should be good about that. However, you have F award and ANA’s 777-300 has only 8 F seats. With you traveling with your wife, getting two F seats on next day’s flight may not come easy.
But any case, you will not have time to enjoy ANA F lounge at NRT.
