Originally Posted by
Boreas
There's 1 seat LHR-TYO tomorrow in F, otherwise nothing for months, although stuff should continually open up - with absolutely no guarantee - as JAL tend to release unsold revenue F seats to partner award availability a few days in advance of travel. It is impossible to depend on this though, especially for more than 1 seat, and it has varied greatly in the past month.
As I say, I haven't seen more than 1 seat in F on JAL per flight, even close to the time, for a while and there may be an internal policy against higher numbers due to recent events. Happy to be corrected on this, it may be the tools I'm using.
Lots more business class availability direct.
Thanks, Boreas - that's a lot of very helpful and useful information.
I'm actually looking for a specific flight on 29 March 2024 either from LHR or other European airports (CDG/HEL/FRA) to TYO on JAL, hence why I wanted to set up alerts as it would only presumably be released closer to date on T-14 or later (if at all release). I have thankfully secured a business class seat already with JAL but it's connecting via HEL and I would rather take up an F seat if I can. Longer routes via the US/Middle East/Asia don't work for me as it sort of defeats the point of getting the comfortable, long flight to Japan.
I've been playing around with seat.aero and, whilst a great tool to have, it doesn't seem to work super precisely against BA's availability. For example, it's showing seats on F on 10 July but those are only available via AA and not via BA. Conversely, it's showing one seat on F on 12 July connecting via CDG which 1) is not available via BA and 2) fails to show the direct F seat which
is available via BA. In other words, it looks like AA's availability and BA's availability are not aligned when it comes to JAL, which adds complexity and is quite annoying.