kyushuman

Arrived to SFO around 110 min before scheduled departure time, but delayed 80 min (from 13:40 to 15:00). About 90% of the pax seem to be flying to MNL/CGK.
I asked at check in a yes/no quesiton--- if they were holding the flights in NRT? The agent (I lived in Japan and still enjoy a great Japanese non-answer!) "Many people on this flight are connecting, so..... "
So.... I'll report back on the NRT connection. Still feeling pretty confident it'll work out!
Foreigners actually *cant* stay in Japan so.....

CPH-Flyer

JL729 and JL745 seems to depart late every single day, so yeah they are probably waiting for passengers connecting from the US.

JALPak

JL62 departed almost 3 hrs late today because JL was holding the plane for transit passengers. They will definitely wait for you and you may even have time to enjoy the first class lounge because JL61 will be arriving 3 hours late as well. They will probably delay your flight for a few hours as long as there are passengers connecting from JL61.

edit: just checked, your flight is delayed with 21:30 as the estimated departure time.

Jaimito Cartero

JL usually does a great job with connections at NRT. I don’t think I’ve ever missed a connection, and most were 60-90 minute connections.

kyushuman

OP here. The original 13:40 got amended to a 15:00 departure time from SFO-- but that was quite optimistic from JAL; ended up 15:41, two hours and one minute late. Not easy to turn a 773ER in 2 hours, I assume!
Caught up some time enroute and arrive 75 min late.
The entire bank of Asia flights are delayed 3 hours tonight, I assume because SAN departed 4 hours late (!) and will arrive around 20:00.
Even with 2+ hours the lady booking showers at the Sakura Lounge was not optimistic about my chances; we will see.
Lounge downstairs was incredibly hot and stuffy, now upstairs in "The Dining" and it's better.
As a OW SPH flying JAL C, no First Class Lounge for me. This Sakura Lounge is good, though.
Some good news-- the flight (food, service, seat) was excellent from SFO-NRT. Next flight on tilted old 787-800 seats 2x2x2 less so, but usually the FAs are friendly and the Japanese food is good. I forgot how long NRT-CGK is, farther than JFK-LHR!
7+ hours flight time.

CPH-Flyer

Yeah the Sakura lounge reopened from this week. About time, but only just realised after reading your post.

Jaimito Cartero

Yeah, those regional 787 2x2x2 seats are very uncomfortable. I think they used to fly it with a 767 too which was so bad I was going to switch to an economy seat.

CPH-Flyer

Yeah, they have been running 767s with vantage flat seats on the route quite a bit, but also 777-200ER and 787-9 with Sky Suite III. The good periods were when they had 777-300ER with first class on the route. Alternated with Sydney on summer/winter schedules, and went away when they needed the frames for making both JFK flights 77W.

work2fly

55 minute delay on today's SFO-NRT due to a late inbound aircraft. I'm hopeful the relevant onward Asian connections are held as needed, as ours is now just 15 minutes! I was hoping for a round of nigiri and sake in the F lounge but will now be happy with just making the connection

Jaimito Cartero

We had a three hour connection last month, and the lines for checking Covid documents, and I was bringing an electric wheelchair that they had to write up, that we only had 10 minutes in the lounge.

work2fly

JL ended up delaying most NRT Departures last night by about an hour, so we and others made our connections.

The sushi was fine as was the other food we ordered.

The 1:30am arrival into SIN was nothing short of brutal, however.

kyushuman

I'd take that over the 3-hour departure delays last week Wednesday; arrived CGK at the perky hour of 2:34AM. Had a domestic flight at 11:40AM so that made for a quick night at the Ibis Styles Jakarta Airport. Was SO glad to have booked there!

dw

With overnight transit not allowed at NRT, sounds like that's how the evening regional Asia bank is going to operate for the time being.

kyushuman

My return CGK-NRT-SFO-JFK is looking tight. CGK-NRT on time, but NRT-SFO is already delayed 30 min, showing the same delay on arrival (maybe it will make up time in flight?). With MCT of 1:45 in SFO and my connecting time down to 1:15, I will update here or on the Newbie Lounge Thread what my conversation looks like. Next SFO-JFK is NINE HOURS later. Even with a short hop, not much avail.
NRT-LAX-JFK might be available but the LAX-JFK might be sold out in Biz. Not sure JAL will touch my AA booking.

CPH-Flyer

Once you are within 24 hours of the first flight, JAL would take ownership of the ticket and are responsible for all rebookings in case of irrops.

MCT does not mean you can't make it, it just means you would not have been allowed to book it. If you have GE and with a bit of assistance from the airlines, you could probably make it through in time with 1h 15m. Though I know that AA tends to start boarding ridiculously early. Earlier boarding start for an AA 737 than for a JAL 777-300.