Originally Posted by
italdesign
I transferred from T2 to T3 yesterday. It was shockingly long and unpleasant.
1. It's hard to believe in this day and age, an airport of a modern city like Tokyo has no train connecting passengers between terminals.
2. We waited 20 minutes for a bus to arrive. That's unacceptably long, and it wasn't even able to accommodate all queued passengers. I hope they didn't have to wait another 20 minutes.
3. The drive took at least 15 minutes. I was starting to wonder if we were being hijacked.
4. Passengers were packed like sardines.
I once had an I-I transfer in Tokyo with a 45min layover. With this terminal transfer, if I had anything under 1.5 hours, I would have had zero lounge time and in danger of missing the flight.
In contrast, I landed in KUL a few hours later (on ANA). Their aerotrain being out of service, they had business class buses ferrying J pax from Satellite terminal to Main terminal. The bus seats were opulent and spacious, there was no wait, and there was even a mini waiting area with tea. It put ANA's HND transfer experience to absolute shame.
There are two trains actually (Keisei, Monorail) that both have stops at T3 and T1/T2. They’re just both landside. HND isn’t really designed for international transfers. It’s for those connecting to/from Japan. NRT is where most of the I-I transfers go.
Not sure I’d choose KUL as the comparison here. The train broke down due to lack of maintenance and last year passengers stuck on the train after it broke down had to walk on the rails to get off. I’ve also used the recent bus instead and I’m glad they have a separate bus for business class, but I wouldn’t say it’s a luxurious experience.