JAL 787 San Diego - SkySuite?
 

Hi there,

I have a hold on an award ticket on JAL from SAN-NRT in December 2016.

It looks like it's currently operated by the neo business class seat.

Wondering if anyone knows if/when business class is scheduled to be upgraded to the Sky Suite product?

Thanks,

Daniel

There is no published schedule for that. Or even rumours...

Most likely no

From reading the bloggers JL has no plans on upgrading all of the 787's to include the J Sky Suits, if you can route through DFW, you will get the 787 with the J Sky Suit, I was able to snag 2 RT tickets out of DFW, SAN would have been easier but the hard product is so inferior...

No word on when (or if) it will be upgraded to the SkySuite, but to be honest, I feel the NEO Shell gets bad press and doesn't 100% deserve all of it. After all, it's still great JAL service and their shell style seat is currently in use by many airlines in the world including Korean, Qatar, Air France, American and Thai.

It's not the most innovative product and certainly the Sky Suite is superior, but I would not backtrack hours to DFW. Those hours are meaningful, especially when it involves a narrowbody domestic AA flight.

Take the route that's most convenient for you, either the NEO or the SkySuite will be many light years better than AA, I can guarantee you that.

Would be funny if SAN-DFW is delayed and you get re-routed to AA's DFW-NRT flight LOL

Even funnier if the OP ended up on SAN-LAX-NRT all AA metal. AA NGBC 777 is dreadful and among the business cabins I consider worst in the air, along with the old (now fully refitted) Lufthansa business that was similar in design.

Just my opinion, but I think it's entirely possible that this route will be upgraded to SS in the future. Keep in mind that JL still has a couple 787-8's to be delivered plus most of the 9's. The SAN, YVR, and LAX-KIX routes are currently the longest operating the older J seats because they simply don't have the planes. Once they have enough planes, I don't see any reason that they couldn't swap them out and place the older 787's on regional Asia routes.

Sure, but most likely just not Dec 2016 which OP is interested in.

JL has new routes comings so the new planes will be used on those routes first, the older 787's wont get a refresh until it's time for a mid level maintenance checl

Agreed. IMO some of the Shell NEO 787 routes are borderline secondary routes for JL. LAX-KIX, then YVR and SAN. At one point YVR was actually a regional 767 with SkyRecliners, so Shell Flat is an upgrade already! I believe All Nippon was also running recliners on the YVR route.

I would think the secondary routes will wait for a while, now, being about to fly out of and into SAN from Asia is still a great bargain for 50K granted it's not the sky suits but cutting off 2-3 hours on a one way trip is a very good positive.

Curious what NRT-SAN is like now. Is it still the paired seats of years ago? Is there a mattress pad?

Thanks. How bad is it for a couple? I haven't flown it since JL first got the 787, so my memory is fuzzy. Lie-flat, but paired, so window seat has to climb over aisle? Very few cubbies to store items for handy access during flight?