I just recently flew ANA business class on HND-SFO, and I was left really disappointed by it. Not upset, or unhappy, because the product certainly wasn't bad. Maybe my expectations to fly a Japanese airline had been too high after years of reading reviews and posts about how great they are, but my wife and I were both pretty underwhelmed.

Everyone has an off day, and I'm curious if that was the case for ANA, or if I experienced their standard business class product. For me, the biggest factor was how cold and distant the service felt. I understand that Japanese customer service has its own standards, and that it won't be informal or "buddy-buddy" like in some other countries. However, on our SFO-NRT flight in JL F, the service was still warm, attentive, and caring, and we always felt very taken care of during our time in Japan, across a range of businesses (hole in the wall restaurants to nice hotels). The ANA service, on the other hand, just didn't feel great.

There was nothing wrong with it. No one was rude and no one did or said anything that I could point to and say "there!" But the feeling we both had when we stepped off the plane is that we hadn't had that pleasant of an experience and certainly wouldn't miss it. I've personally had great experiences on AF J and LX J, which don't have a five star reputation, so it's not like I'm expecting to be blown away. And despite a small number of negative interactions with AA flight attendants over the years (like the one who accused my wife of trying to steal AA's headphones just because my wife has the same type of Bose headphones), I've had plenty of AA business class flights that felt more pleasant and enjoyable.

Beyond the service, the seat was quite solid, even if the mattress pad had a strange texture. I was a bit frustrated that ANA didn't serve a dinner service on the flight because it left at 11pm, but I know lots of airlines are guilty of this. However, the pre-arrival meal wasn't very good (carbonara that consisted of cheesy penne and incredibly fatty chicken), and honestly reminded me of premium economy on AA or BA at best. By far, the standout of the flight was the Hibiki Whisky (Blender's Choice), the same "variety" that JL served in F. That was very impressive, even if I only had 2 servings because of how late it was.

The HND lounge was by far the most packed lounge I've ever been to (that or my travel memories from before the pandemic are fading), to the point where the environment wasn't that pleasant. The food was solid, but outside of the great fried chicken, and pretty good chicken curry and noodle bar, the rest of the food reminded me of a solid-to-good contract lounge, not a flagship lounge for a top-tier airline. Once again, the Suntory AO whisky impressed, even if I didn't enjoy it as much as I would've liked. But knowing we wouldn't get dinner on board, the lounge food didn't quite hit the mark.

Overall, I obviously wouldn't avoid flying ANA if the routing and/or price were worthwhile, but I wouldn't actively look forward to flying them again in business, even though I still do with AF, LX, and other "solid" airlines, not to say great ones like QR, CX, KE, etc. I'm still easily entertained and satisfied with business class because it just takes me 10 seconds of thinking of the alternative to be reminded of how fortunate I am to have the miles for J and to not take it for granted.

But all of that said, is this par for the course for ANA, or did I just choose a bad day to fly them?