I was pleased Japan finally reopened to tourism in mid-October. I often attend the Sumo Basho (tournament), and took the opportunity to travel to Fukuoka to attend. Easier to travel from Hawai'i to Fukuoka using United to Guam and Fukuoka. I then visited some friends in Tokyo, and booked on Hawaiian Airlines HA 246 to return to Hawai'i.

When I booked, Hawaiian tried to get me to book on the "direct" flight from Haneda to Kona (KOA), as I live on the Big Island. I demurred, a good decision since Hawaiian subsequently cancelled the service about 10 hours before departure.

At the 24 hour mark, I received TWO emails from HAL asking me to check-in via their app. However check-in failed for me. Turned out check-in failed for EVERYONE, as they had disabled Japan flight check-in without telling anyone. Nice. HAL's IT support is among the worst in the business, so I was unsurprised. I had also received an email imploring me to "bid" on an upgrade to business class on this Airbus 330. They set the minimum bid as $650. Yikes! There looked to be few takers.

Check-In at the airport was incompetently managed by local Japanese staff who seemed confused about the process. It was frustrating for many. The two Hawaiian Airlines employees (wearing Aloha shirts, 'natch) snuck away as check-in begun. A nice touch.

Haneda Airport has been the primary gateway to Japan during the pandemic, not Narita. The new Haneda Terminal 3 (International) is well-designed, spacious, and unfortunately still had about 2/3 of the businesses closed. Many of the flights were going on packed, including the adjacent gate where a JAL flight to Sydney was chock-a-block.

Boarding was uneventful, the flight looked to be about 1/2 full. Many of the passengers had paid for "Extra Comfort" seating - a little more seat pitch, and slightly better headphones looked to be the only benefit. This turned out to be a big mistake. I was in the center section row 20. Much of the center section area of coach was empty, and I was able to stretch out on the four seats without any difficulty.

The flight left about 8PM from Tokyo, and they served a meal. It was the HAL attempt at a "Loco-Moco", and was hideous. A hamburger patty, a slug of lukewarm rice, topped with a fried egg. I would guess these meals were made in Hawai'i, and carried on the inbound. I can't imaging the Japanese serving something so vile. I had snagged a noodle bowl at the airport prior to leaving, so that proved to be the best move.

No Wifi, lousy movies on seatback screens. No thanks. Can't understand why HAL believes these longhaul flights with no amenities are competitive. They aren't.

The airplane temperature was frightfully cold. FA's handed out blankets at the beginning of the flight, and I heard one imploring the passenger to take it. I got up at one point and a FA in the galley was sitting, bundled up in a blanket, so cold it was on the plane. Meh.

Flight arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule, despite high winds in HNL.

Arrival in Honolulu wasn't terrific. Waited too long for ground staff to even begin moving the jetbridge into position. FA"s blocked the exits from the coach passengers (so much for "Extra Comfort") until the business class had exited. An exceedingly long walk to immigration (with two of the moving sidewalks turned off). Immigration was speedy - despite my Global Entry membership I went through the manual processing line, as the Global Entry machines were swamped.

Bags were arriving when I exited immigration, and my bag was already on the carousel. Terrific! Exiting customs, I discovered that Hawaiian Airlines was NOT rechecking bags at the exit, AS THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO. United was there, but no Hawaiian. This meant I had to lug my heavy overseas suitcase to the Hawaiian Terminal, which is a passenger disaster area. Long lines, poorly designed - I had hoped the pandemic would get HAL to do something about this user-unfriendly terminal, but no dice. Even as a TSA Precheck, the lines are long and slow getting into the terminal.

Many of the video monitors in the terminal had frozen at 5:50AM, and no one cared to reboot them.

With almost 3MM on United, why did I fly back on HAL? Because HAL miles are usually unusable - rare to find availability interisland and they don't fly anywhere on the mainland that does me any good. And I've mostly stopped flying HAL even interisland since Southwest arrived. Much happier to be on the SW 737's than the noisy, junky HAL 717's.