Many thanks. I reached out to EK who agree with your interpretation of the above.

Anectodally, a friend who just flew in on EY from AUH said that out of the seven passengers onboard, only four ended up going on to hotel quarantine so I suppose it is possible the other three were in transit.

was thinking of sending them an email....if i don't get a response then will try calling them....

My son will be coming back to Kansai from HNL in July, but the ANA flights I was planning on were to NRT then the connection departing from HND.

JAL has connections via HND, but entering the domestic side is not allowed.

I called JAL and they confirmed this, saying there are no direct flights to Kansai until Sept.

This is from the JAL website:
All travelers arriving from an international flight must stay at places designated by the quarantine chief (such as home) for 14 days from the day following their entry into Japan. Travelers must not use public transportation (including domestic flights) to get to their designated place of quarantine from the airport. Therefore, connections to domestic flights can be made from the 15th day after the 14 days of quarantine is completed.

Will yo drive to Tokyo to collect your son? Or perhaps he can hire a car and drive himself? Or will he have to hotel quarantine for 14 days?

At one time there was a flight from Tokyo to Nagoya that qualified as an "international," - IIRC, passengers all connected from international flights without clearing customs and immigration in Tokyo. It would make sense to operate such services to KIX, FUK, CTS to make life a little easier for people who want to return to the regions - but I don't suppose that's on the cards.

He's just 17, so driving home on his own is out. I did find out that United flies into Nagoya, with a 12hr stopover in Guam, so that will probably be the route we go (6 hours of driving for me instead of 16 roundtrip to Tokyo). When he flew out a year ago it was ITM-HND/NRT-GUM-HNL, so this is actually easier.

Hawaiian has nonstop HNL-KIX right now? Seems to be once a week on Tuesday, shows up on Google Google flights

operating in July too $800 usd one way
https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/Htx1

Of course, flight booking systems haven't been adjusted to require a minimum connection time of 336 hours for international to domestic connections. Why do the airlines offer those itineraries if no one can book them?

At least it's possible for someone to drive to Tokyo to pick him up. It's worse if someone needs to go to Hokkaido, Okinawa-ken or some remote island if you can't take a flight, train or ferry. How do those people get home? Do they all have to spend 14 days at a hotel?

They don't offer connections, but they will allow you to do a 15 day stop in Tokyo should you want to do so.


Yes, they would basically need to stay 14 days in a hotel, coming back to the 15 day stop that you can buy.

Towards the end of March, JAL operated a couple of US (I forget the gateway) to Chubu. So at times there are extra flights to make it easier to hit certain regions. If there is a projected need.

You're right. I didn't see that before. Though with the o/w price at ¥95,000 (r/t ¥165,000) it is pretty pricey.

I think I'll use 27,500 UA miles for the GUM flight. Worth keeping an eye on though in case the price drops to the ¥50,000 range.

I thought it would be possible to drive a rental to Hokkaido but I guess you would be breaking the rule by getting on a ferry.

There are approved "private car" rentals run by taxi companies, which are basically expensive taxis that only take one person at a time and require PCR tests.

Okinawa does have direct international flights. I suppose you could hire a "private boat" to take you to a remote island.

Of course, all of these "regulations" are really requests, and people probably fudge all the time. A friend's son came back from the US and was picked up curbside, but he could have easily boarded a highway bus or a train. My son said he knows Japanese uni students who came home, and then were out and about a week later (they left their phones at home). Nowhere near the tight tracking that occurs in Hawaii and Australia.

youll have to peek into exertflyer to see why (fare rules or lack of fare class buckets), Hawaiian does have it down to $400 oneway selected days in august (also shows more airlines have nonstop hnl-kix starting in august)

Possible to wait a month when theres more airlines flying?

You might be right about more flights coming in, although if Japan has raging COVID I suspect there won't be much demand. I have seen plenty of scheduled Hawaii flights get canceled over the past year. Good idea though to look at expert flyer.

I am sure my son wouldn't complain about an extra month, but we do miss him and he needs to get through a 2-week quarantine here. The drive to Nagoya is not too bad (just 2 hours more than the drive to KIX), so that will be what we go with unless something pops up to KIX.

For reference, we picked up a local friend last fall who returned from the States and could only get to Haneda. We live in Kobe area. Drove up to Haneda to pick her up and brought her back. Actually, went the day before and stayed in Yokohama, then drove back the day of her arrival. Wasn't bad. As you probably know, there are a few nice SAs along the way scattered among the usual ones. Traffic at night was good. Google maps provides a chat section where you can see other drivers making comments of where the police are active, should you choose to drive with the other fast drivers in the right-hand lane. :-) Took about 7 hours, including stops, for the return trip.

I've made the drive once but it took 10 hours due to traffic. Never used the Google maps chat, but that does sound useful. In most cases, I feel driving up to 120km is not very risky (knock on wood).

Traffic going into Haneda was certainly worse than leaving. Agree about 120 km or so. That's the pace in the right lane, so just travel with the rest of the pack.

Update: United sent me an email canceling the GUM-NGO leg. Might have to bite the bullet and drive to Tokyo (or pay the 80,000 for a flight to KIX).

I don't think that you can count on the KIX route not getting cancelled. I've got friends trying to plan a trip to the US and return early August, hopefully, to KIX, but their return flight has been cancelled. I think that a Tokyo airport destination has the highest probability of not getting cancelled.

UA wouldn't let me book the non-stop HNL-HND on ANA as an award, so it is now HNL-GUM/GUM-NRT/HND-ITM. They said I might get lucky and the rules might change to allow domestic transfer. Yeah, right. Two days before the Olympics start?

Other options are buying nonstop JAL or ANA for ¥54,000 and ¥58,000. But then crunching the numbers, it looks like it'll cost 33,000 to drive roundtrip to Haneda, and 36,000 to Narita. I could fly one way for ¥10,000, but I haven't found a oneway rental yet that doesn't have a huge dropoff fee.

The Hawaiian flight to KIX is now starting to look more attractive, but as you said, it might get canceled...

A waste to use 35,000 on an economy JAL ticket that costs ¥54,000.

I feel your pain. We were hoping to get back to Seattle area this summer. But the unsure situation with flights led us to not even try. Have you looked at flights routing through Korea?

I think that your estimate of cost for the round-trip drive looks about right. I'm very fortunate because a family member has a special needs certification which includes half-price ETC tolls. A big help for me when I drove up and back.

I did consider Korea or Taiwan, since there are a few flights into KIX, but the former requires roundtrip for Skyteam, and the latter I couldn't find much, plus I think I read it is not letting people transit w/o 14 day quarantine. There are so few flights from HNL these days it is tough to find any availability.

CDG-KIX, AMS-KIX and DXB-KIX seem to be operating. It's of course a very long detour if arriving from HNL and you might end up in hotel quarantine in Japan.

Yeah, I am not going to torture my son like that. An overnight in the Guam airport is much more palatable than an extra 24 hours in the air in economy.

That said, my buddy in Shiga is sending his teenage son from Michigan to NRT via DBX because it was $800 vs $2000.

So his son goes via DXB but still goes to NRT instead of KIX? That's stupid.

What's stupid about saving $1,200?

United seems to have cancelled all their GUM-NGO flights through July 31st

Hawaiian has been consistently operating HA449 HNL-KIX for april + may (tuesday only), so they're less likely to cancel (unless Japan declares a major change)

(Versus united, who basically thought they could start gum-ngo service now, but pushed it back to august)

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/HAL449/history

hard to say, definitely the TYO flights are less likely to cancel but its' more time/roughly same $

if HNL-TYO cancelled in advance, hard to say if ANA/JAL would re-route you via continental USA or just refund you. if cancelled/IRROPS sameday as flight, higher chance of this happening

I had assumed that the more expensive ticket was for something more direct than connecting via DXB.

The drive from Shiga is not as bad as from Kobe, plus my friend doesn't mind long drives. He'll probably save $800 after gas and tolls are calculated.

IF Japan allowed domestic transfers for tested, vaccinated people, I could get him home for $450 on ANA. This United award routing I have now is a 21 hour layover in GUM, which is double what outgoing flight was. I think I will bite the bullet and pay the $750 for the KIX flight. Only thing is the best date (7/20) has jumped up to $1200, so now we are looking at 7/13 or 7/27.

EDIT* Booked 7/13 for $779 Hopefully end of discussion...now the only question is where to credit the miles (AA I think). I will report if anything crops up.

Just wanted to provide an update to this post. As of today, you can still transit NRT on separate tickets and ANA will still through check to UA. Let ANA check you in for UA flight rather than doing self check in, since they might need to make adjustments when through checking and linking reservations.

Of course, if you can book single tickets, please continue to do so as it saves the hassle at check-in. I’m sure many who are doing separate routings are redeeming VS on ANA. I can’t report on other outstations but ANA staff at ORD seem to be familiar with the routine.

Also, even though technically required, airlines haven’t been checking COVID tests for passengers entering Guam when transiting Narita and originating in the CONUS, regardless if it’s separate or single itinerary. Please don’t take this as a recommendation to avoid a test, but if for some reason you can’t get a test in time, the enforcement seems to be questionable on CONUS-NRT-GUM routings.

is this with or without presenting vaccination record? (Guam quarantine requirements, waived covid test &quarantine for vaccinated individuals with proper records, so they should have checked that too)

Surprised this is the case, expected the usual rule following behavior.

Both, surprisingly. While the COVID test is a federal/US requirement, the vaccination to exempt quarantine is a local requirement. The latter will never cause a passenger to be denied entry regardless of vaccination status so the airlines don’t seem to care.

Sometimes these two get intertwined and confused. It even made the local news since some official responses caused an IDB from a passenger originating in TPE.

A friend's son got his PCR test done in the US (Wisconsin), but was refused check-in as he did not have the required paperwork. Took 48 hours to get retested, but he eventually made it to NRT (via Dubai). Since my son will be coming from HNL, I trust the paperwork will be done right.

I can only recommend to sure make to that the medical institution is willing to fill in and sign the form that the government of Japan has published for PCR results. If not, don't just trust, ask for an advance example of the form and check that it lives up the requirements.

Don't automatically trust anything that happens in Hawaii!

His host brother visited Japan a month ago and is now back in Hawaii, so as long as he follows that example, I think it will go smoothly. Of course, you never know when an unexpected change/rule will get introduced.

Maybe I missed it, but did you get a flight to KIX?

Yeah, although they gave me a bit of a scare. I booked online, requested a seat, paid and got the receipt. Then a month later went to check about crediting to a program and noticed there was no ticket issued. I called and got a "that's strange, you paid" response, and they issued it right then.
-Booked 7/13 for $779 Hopefully end of discussion...now the only question is where to credit the miles (AA I think). I will report if anything crops up.

My other son is going to the US in July on an award ticket. Going is not a problem, but his return EWR-SFO-KIX was cancelled about 2 weeks after I booked it. Called and the choices were NYC-ICN-KIX or NYC-MUN-KIX. He chose the latter, as it has a bit more time in the air, but not in one shot. Plus less waiting time in the airport. And he gets to say he flew around the globe...

Good to hear. Hope it goes well for both of them. It's weird to say that this will be the second summer in a row that I've not travelled outside of Japan.

Hi,

What are the requirements transit in NRT?

I'm flying MNL - NRT - YVR (1 PNR, NH/AC)

Are transit passengers allowed? Any paperwork needed to transit in Japan? Apps to download? PCR test with specific Japan attestation form?

Thanks!

There is only one requirement for the transit. It works more or less like normal. Except they will take all connecting passengers of the flight first, and escort them to transit security.
The one restriction is due to airport operations and immigration, the transit can't be overnight as the terminal closes and you generally can't enter Japan. But I doubt the airline would sell that on one ticket anyway

Thank you CPH! Info I needed to hear! :D