CPH-Flyer

It depends on how flexible you are with your dates, and whether they overlap with some of the Japanese peak travel seasons. These flights can become ridiculously expensive in certain periods,though when I was looking at F and J, it seemed more based on timing than actual loads.

CDG1

How many of us FT'ers have got seats on the inaugural flights so far?
I am in Premium Y. on the return HNL-NRT flight of 24 May.

Does ANA have an arrivals lounge at NRT?

CPH-Flyer

They do have an arrivals lounge, but it is only for J and upwards, and not a *G lounge as arrival It is pretty basic, and double as domestic departure lounge. But the showers are nice.

I would guess NH Diamond members get access as well....

AlwaysAisle

The easiest answer can be it is cultural thing in Japan. Even in this day and age, in Japan package tour with dedicated tour guide is still very popular especially on international travel (out side of Japan) due to cultural and language barrier many Japanese feel. Japan-Hawaii route is a great example for that, many seats on flights are sold via travel agency as part of package tour like tickets sold via consolidators and often airlines sell bulk of seat to travel agents. Tickets sold directly by airlines can be very small number. Back in '80s and '90s often ANA and JAL did not even bothers to list discount fares on Japan-Hawaii route, if you wanted to by ticket directly from an airline only option was full Y fare.

In Europe, even before LCC came to play there were charter airlines which covered such demand. In Japan there was no charter only airlines which covered such market but in '80s and '90s JAL tried with JAL Ways and ANA tried with World Air Network (later renamed Air Japan), where JAL Ways and World Air Network flew to leisure destination (including Hawaii) using crew from southeast Asia countries (cheaper labor) and flights sold primary via package tour. During peak of this number of 747s at HNL every morning from NRT was impressive. However, it got to the point tour packages got too cheap, there used to be a tour package from Japan to Hawaii for less than US$500/person, air fare, hotel, and meal included. Also bubble economy in Japan bursted and end of bubble era in Japan. Both ANA and JAL made decision not to put too much effort on leisure route and concentrate on business heavy route. JAL Ways went away and Air Japan become small operation pretty much supporting mainline ANA operation.

Number of Japanese visitors to Hawaii declined because of this, and same time visitors from South Korea, Taiwan, and China have increased so Hawaii did not suffer decline in foreign visitors much. But Hawaii officials wanted to get back visitors from Japan. Hawaii officials worked with Japanese officials, including JAL and ANA, had numerous campaigns about Hawaii in Japan past few years. This effort has paid off and both ANA and JAL has decided to put back little attention to Hawaii. HA (Hawaiian Air) establishing few routes to Japan past few years was part of this also. Hence what is happening now with Japan-Hawaii route.

Even before official sales of tickets for NH A380 inaugural flights started there were travel agents in Japan advertising inaugural NH A380 tour package to Honolulu. Pretty much all were publicized in Japan only in Japanese so unless if you search internet in Japanese you did not get search results on internet. I think ANA and JAL still has to rely on sales of package tours to fill seats on Hawaii flights. To maintain a good business relationship with tour operators and travel agents, ANA just cannot say "Sorry, for A380 inaugural flight we will sell tickets on our own and will not use tour operators and travel agents."

I think what you are seeing is something unique to Japan-Honolulu route, even business class on Japan-Honolulu route is sold via package tour. It is how the market works on Japan-Honolulu route.

24left

@AlwaysAisle
Great and informative post. Thanks so much.

love_to_travel

I just got back from Tokyo and was able to buy some ANA A380 memorabilia from the ANA duty free shop at NRT. They were selling towels, mugs and a set of luggage tags that had one tag for each of the Flying Honus that will eventually travel the NRT-HNL route. I got the tags

24left

Some great bits on this TLS Spotter's Twitter page

https://twitter.com/RomainC82


Such as this video clip

24left

Also quoted for those who can't see the original tweet link

CDG1

I hold it from serious sources that some 20 Japanese pilots went to the Airbus training center in Toulouse for training on the A380 flight simulators and also taking hands-on training on the original prototype F-WWOW that was newly refurbished. A number of them still being there at the flight testing facility.

Now about flights all we hear are rumors. The Honu is supposed to make a flight to Paris CDG maybe later this week on the 7th. Date unconfirmed. If I knew the exact date and time I would go there to see the plane but I am nowhere near there so I am not going to take the risk to go all the way there and see no Honu.

Have any of you got a firmed date for the delivery ceremony from Airbus to ANA? Again I heard 27 or 28 of this month.
If I knew for certain I could fly down there for the day but then again I have to be certain that this is true.and I need advance notice to purchase my air + rail tickets.. The uncertainty of it all is the major problem.

Singapore Airlines gave us really nice black Mandarina Duck bags on the first 3 inaugurals, Sydney, London and Narita with beautiful top quality diecast 1:400 scale models and various other gifts inside. I doubt ANA will have such luxurious gifts so I will probably buy a 1:400 scale model on the flight and have it signed and dated by the flight deck crew.

CDG1

Latest:

Delivery ceremony of ANA first A380 "Lani" to the client will take place at Toulouse Blagnac 20 March 2019.
I have no indication what time. I will re-post if I have the info.

The second plane will come out of the paint shop in Hamburg for her roll-out and presentation 4 days later on 24 March.

24left

Very detailed article with charts and data.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...hawaii-456453/

CDG1

The roll-out and presentation of second ANA A380 in Hamburg will be on 25 March (not 24).

There are still no seats for 24 May NRT-HNL Honu flight showing for sale on the ANA booking page.

Any idea if the whole flight was sold by travel agents in Japan?
I would not know how to access the system.

CDG1

Airbus on Twitter:

Tune in on Wednesday, March 20th at 1300 CET to witness LIVE the delivery of the first #A380 to @FlyANA_official. #FLYINGHONU

Japan is Toulouse Blagnac Time +8 hours;

CDG1

You can watch replays of this morning's delivery ceremony on the Airbus YT page.
The ANA CEO has quite a good sense of humour!

Honu is a beautiful aircraft. I predict the 3 planes will be a huge success. They can fly them to all parts of the world if they want to.


Enjoy.

NewbieRunner

On the way to NRT.