SugoiHikouki

I'm not sure the government is ready to open the country up to tourists, especially since there isn't established infrastructure to check vaccination records and Japan is barely beginning vaccinations this week. Given even the Japanese government doesn't have a crystal ball, any plans to open things up ahead of time is shaky at best. I'm not sure airlines would schedule/operate routes purely based on such back-channel information.

I don't know a whole lot about how travel is booked for US military, but I've seen service members fly on the SAN-NRT flight (presumably booked on AA codeshare). I don't know if that along with whatever other demand that exists now plus cargo can justify operating the route 3x/week.

AS is joining oneworld by end of March. It's pretty thin but could be a welcome present?

I also wonder how much of this is ramping up with the assumption that the Olympics will happen with spectators.

OpenSky

We can only speculate. Some countries have already vaccinated 10 % of its poupulaion or more ( I'm thinking the US) and there is no much in terms of records being kept other than a CDC card. 10% would be roughly 38 million people.

kentauta

It is not clear at this point whether one can still be contagious after establishing immunity by vaccination. Unless that changes or herd immunity is established, I believe vaccination of incoming travelers will remain just an additional assurance to a negative test (which is also not quite reliable). So I don't think the recent progress of vaccination in some countries will be the basis of opening borders or resuming more routes like SAN and SEA next month. Japan might make an exception for the Olympics though.

I am curious how much $$$ airlines lose (or gain) in case of nearly zero pax but full belly cargo at the current elevated cargo pricing for routes like SAN-NRT and SEA-NRT. They have quite frequently operated cargo-only flights like that for LAX-TYO using 77W, etc for a while, so there must be a very good reason to fly them.

CPH-Flyer

As far as I know the e-visa is in principle operational, but visas are suspended due to the pandemic.

Japan is not going to admit tourists anytime soon. My earliest guess is Olympics, but I don't feel too sure.

TinyFluffyRabbit

Has anyone been on their US flights recently and can speak to their load factors? I am considering flying SIN to SAN transiting in NRT and am thinking about whether paying the extra miles for J would be worth it compared to Y. It'll be a daytime flight and so if I have an empty seat next to me or an empty row it should be pretty roomy even in Y with an 8-across configuration

CPH-Flyer

Pretty abysmal load factors these days seen from the carrier's perspective.

nov11

Flew KUL-NRT-ORD last week. KUL-NRT had about 100 or so pax (I was really surprised by that, and about 10 or so were transfer pax). I checked in 2 hours prior to departure and my boarding number/sequence is 90+.

NRT-ORD was maybe about 50 pax.1 pax in F, 7-8 in J, 1 in PEY and a handful in Y.

TinyFluffyRabbit

Thanks for the responses! That's actually more people than I was expecting. Given that Y would be 37.5K miles, J would be 70K miles, and fees are identical, I decided to just go with J. I don't need to use the AA miles for anything else in the near future, and this is a good enough use case that I don't want to hoard the miles.