Bix

Found a competitive return fare out of Cairns for mid year.
Anyone had any experience flying Aus to London with JAL please ?

We have 3 adults between 6'1" - 6'4".
Are we likely to be cramped in tiny Japanese seats ?

What's the grub like cos we don't like Japanese food ?

I thought if you had to stay overnight at Narita JAL put you up but there's nothing on their website about it or on the Lastminute.com booking pages.
(It's a 19 hour stop)

Cheers for any help.

Pollyana

I flew back from London with them in 2006, well, the second half was with JAL, the first bit, to Tokyo, was BA - that half was appalling.
The JAL part of the trip Tpkyo-BNE, was wonderful, both the airport and the flight were excellent, very attentive polite staff, who tried so hard to please even when they couldn't speak English. The food was great too, and not noticeably Japanese, just "normal" airline type meals, fairly general food and no chopsticks!. Can't tell you about the economy seat pitch as that was the one flight I got an upgrade on - they upgraded me instantly at check in , marked Upgrade for Compassionate Reasons, I didn't even have to ask

http://www.airlinequality.com/ probably has the seat pitch somewhere.

derab

Bix

they do put you up in their hotel for the overnight stay.
the best way of describing the rooms is a 1-piece plastic moulded room with a bed and TV in it, its pretty stark.

If you are not a fan of japanese food then my advice is to look elsewhere.
admittedly its a long time ago, but in 1995 i travelled back on JAL First class to the UK and economy back (it was a compassionate trip).
I don't eat fish, and I tell you I was ravenous by the time I arrived at heathrow, and 10,000 yen lighter (about $100 at the time) for snack food overnight and at the airport.

It was a long time ago so maybe someone else knows if it has changed..
I did have a choice in my First class meal.. Salmon or Lobster, they were even unwilling to look at the economy meals to see if i had an alternative

Jaycee1

Hi Bix,
We travelled in 2005 LHR to sydney with a 6 hour wait at Kansai/Osaka for connecting flight.
The airport - We used the showers there which were a godsend.Very cheap and clean too.
Kansai airport is expensive for food, my youngest was starving and I remember it cost a £5 for toast :eek
There are 2 sections to it, you get a little monorail to the other area for departures - the area only has a small newsagent style shop and it cost me £4 for 1 bag of sweets - make sure you go there just before boarding as it's boring in that bit.
The flight -
Flight was alright, we arrived early for the seats and OH dot exit seat with me sat behind with 2 kids . It was a 12 + 12 to Sydney (+6 hours in airport!)
The food was just edible, did some U.K style foods, kids meals not very good. The service was good and they handed out plenty of drinks!
The hotel Nikko on return -
The hotel was very nice - they originallly had 4 of us in one room and they weren't happy with this and gave us 2 rooms with middle door. Room was basic but comfortable. However, be aware that there are no drinks in room and only vending machines on the corridors in the heat and the air con was desperate for a drink. The free buffet breakfast in the morning was everything you would want and we made sure we ate loads before the next flight!!!
i would use JAL again, but IMHO I'd use Emirates for the 3 lots of 7 hr flights to break it up.
Let us know how it goes!!
J x

SimonG

Hi Bix,

We flew return in 99 with JAL Heathrow to Brisbane. Very good, good mix of food and drink. On the return leg we had to check in again at Tokyo due to the overnight stop and me and the smallest ended up in business class.

Simon.

stormywhether

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We went to Sydney with Jap a couple of years ago and it was a great experience,

i'd been told the service onboard was pretty good and it's true, the staff go out of their way to get everything you need - and always with a smile.

they are regularly competitive on price and the aircraft are well-equipped with all the entertainment you could want. The food is great too - it does jean towards the oriental, naturally - if you want fish and chips fly BA!

Poppy girl

My favorite airline to go to Aussie superb service and nice clean updated aircraft, I have flown Quantas,Brunei,KLM to Australia and JAL beats them all in my opinion, I flew Garuda once not even sure if they are still around that was the experiance from hell

TrickyTrev

Hi Bix

We flew with JAL Brisbane to London with the kids. We were sat at the back of the plane and when it came to meal time we had no choices only Japanese type food which the kids would not touch and which the wife and I found not to our taste!! The staff could not offer any alternatives as they told us they only had a limited number of western style meals and they had all gone (at the front of the plane!). They could not even offer a sandwich or similar type snack. The kids went hungry all the way (not happy) and the wife and me hardly eat much at all.

Everything else was fine I thought. Therefore I agree with the previous comment made;- if you don't like Japanese style food fly with another airline!!! I know we will never use them again and purely and simply for that one reason.

Trev
x

Centurion

Flown with JAL a couple of times LHR to BNE and good experiences all round.

As always the LHR to Tokyo sector is in a shiny modern plane then the Tokyo yo BNE sector is usually in an older aircraft.

Food is excellent and be adventurous and do try the Japanese meals they are very yummy.

Overnight in Tokyo has been at the Raddison and rooms were excellent.

hantsfamily1

I flew with them once and found the flight and planes superb. Narita was ok just got bored as I was on my own.

quoll

Flown with them a couple of times - first time so long ago that I cant remember much but last time it was very so so - flight was delayed for mechanical problems so we had a long wait in the Sydney Hilton for it to get fixed. That meant we didnt have time to take the hotel sleep over but too long for a comfortable transit.

They didnt have a record of our vegetarian diet which made for a very hungry teenager who was with us at the time - I had specified when booking but they couldnt be bothered to do anything about fixing the problem either! I didnt think the cabin staff were either interested or particularly friendly.

They didnt have us sitting together either which was rather odd so our son sat somewhere else - didnt bother any of us but it was odd that they didnt put a 3 person family together especially when we booked as a family.

Flight legs seemed longer than going via Bangkok or Singapore but we did have the nose wheel camera which was rather fun - you could see the world going by below you.

Because we were rather restricted as to food, it seemed they had a western or Japanese option - as someone else said, we had one occasion where we got Japanese which was not really to our liking.

Cheetah7

I have flown with JAL both times I have been to Oz and I cant fault them.

The first time we were upgraded to business class, the second time the flight was quite busy but the staff were excellent, the hotel was good and no complaints at all.

Vash the Stampede

Flew with JAL when I came to the UK in January 2004, and cannot recommend them highly enough.

Seats were fine; I don't know what a "tiny Japanese seat" is but I wasn't sitting on one. Service was impeccable; flight attendants were extraordinarily attentive (and drop-dead gorgeous ); food was excellent (they offered Western grub & Japanese cuisine); entertainment system was great.

My flight was broken into two parts; Sydney to Kansai; Kansai to Heathrow. We stopped in Kansai overnight, and I was treated to a private room at the Nikko Kansai hotel. It was a double room, so I had a huge amount of space all to myself. Aircon was fully adjustable, and kept the room comfortably cool. Standard of room was around 3-3.5 star, and nicely furnished; no "moulded plastic" to be seen.

Here's a photo of a standard double room at the Nikko Kansai:



Further details here.

I was also given breakfast the next morning.

While most of the Japanese staff spoke perfect English (some were still learning), I was interested to see that some of the flight staff on the Kansai to Heathrow stretch were Poms, who spoke Japanese fluently. The Pommy staff also spoke English quite well (even though several of them were Londoners) and I was able to understand them without too much difficulty.

Definitely fly JAL; you won't regret it.

harrip

Flew with JAL late last year. My favourite airline when the pricing is right. The overnight at Narita is great. It makes all the difference when flying long haul. I like the japanese experience although stopping at Narita is a pretty western affair.

bobanne

We flew JAL last year to Brisbane. We were very impressed with the crew who couldn`t do enough and the cleanliness of the toilets - they seemed to be in there cleaning all the time, a big difference from other airlines. I stuck to the western food but OH tucked into the japanese food. The only downside was that although the flight from London to Narita had entertainment screens for every seat, the flight from Narita to Brisbane was a much older aircraft and had the big screen on the bulkhead so not much choice. We were put in a nice hotel at Narita on the way back and had a good breakfast. We were able to check in for the flight at the hotel and the check-in staff were very helpful and got me a seat with loads of room as I had hip problems.
We would have no problem flying with them again if we had to, but now it is lot more convenient to fly Emirates direct from Scotland and miss out the hell-hole that is Heathrow!
Anne