This is not really a rant, but an inquiry.

Just returned home from Sapporo, connecting in Haneda with JL. The originating flight was (on paper) delayed by thirty minutes due to late arrival of the plane in Sapporo (it actually pushed off 40 minutes late). We had what was supposed to be a 1:20 minute connect time. We were flying business domestic with JL and then connecting international to a business seat on a Hawaiian Air flight to HNL. The entire itinerary was all ticketed by HA.

Short story is that JL Sapporo lounge personnel insisted that we did not have time to make our Haneda connecting flight and that we had to #1 Pickup our luggage in Haneda and #2 fly a JL flight to HNL. They said that it was not possible to retag the luggage and divert it to HA so we did not have to waste time waiting for the luggage. No, they said, we had to pick it up. We have never had the experience of an airline not being able to transfer luggage between diverted fights or allowing the luggage to catch up with us later. Is this normal JL procedures? They also said that they could not tell us what business seats we would be assigned, but were assured that we would be in JL business. I started to monitor Expert Flyer to see if the only two remaining J seats were assigned, but they never were until we checked in at Haneda. I can't understand why this could not have been done immediately.

Our HA flght was to depart at 8:05 PM. Our JL flight arrived at the Haneda gate at 7:22. I'm not experienced with Haneda transfers, but it would seem to me that if we did not have to pick up our luggage, we could have made the HA flight with no problem. In fact, as I was keeping a record, it took us exactly 1:06 minutes to do the transfer and arrive air side, including picking up our luggage and dealing with getting our tickets reissued at Haneda.We wasted 25 minutes waiting for our luggage, and more checking in at the international desk. With all the wasted time, we could not have made the HA flight, but could have if JL handled the luggage issue, and certainly if they notified HA to wait a few minutes for us. (As it is, Flight Aware indicted that the flight actually pushed back at 8:11. So, we were pretty disappointed to have had to waste time with dealing with the luggage and rechecking in. Lucky for us, our two J seats were together.

So, a bit of good with this story: JL did assign a person in Haneda to personally escort us from the gate to luggage to transfer bus and all the way to the international checkin desk. That was pretty unbelievable for an F seat, but incredible for a J seat. The JL seats and meal service were superior to HA. There were some other aspects of the JL experience that were good as well, especially for a non-OneWorld flyer (like being allowed to use the F checkin area in Sapporo).

Any thoughts on the way JL handled the forced change to their aircraft and refusal to retag the luggage?

Many thanks.