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During our recent Party of 5 Challenge, the entire FM Team travelled together to and from Japan. The reason for the season was that Greg miraculously found award space for 5 from Tokyo to San Francisco on ANA’s perpetually sought-after first class product, “The Suite.” Problem was, how would we get there? Greg, being the master reward-diviner that he is, was then able to snag all of us outbound space in Japan Airline’s (JAL) 787 Sky Suites a little over a week before our ANA flight. None of us had ever flown this product before and were excited to try it. There were some great things about it…and a few aspects that were a little underwhelming. 
Japan Airlines 787 Business Bottom Line Review
Japan Airlines 787 business class didn’t impress me as much as I was expecting it to. At 60K AA miles, it’s a well-priced and perfectly adequate way of getting across the Pacific. But it doesn’t really get beyond that. The catering was unremarkable and the service was up and down. While I loved the length of the seat, it’s certainly not among the top products that I’ve experienced from a comfort perspective. The 787 Sky Suite won “Best Business Class Seat” from SkyTrax in 2013, but it’s showing its age now and could use a bit of a refresh.
- How we found it: Greg used seats.aero to look at availability to Japan from throughout the West Coast during our time-frame and came up with a terrific find.
- How we booked it: 60,000 American AAdvantage miles and $11.20 each.
- Cash Price: ~$2,600pp one-way.
- Route: San Francisco (SFO) – Tokyo Narita (NRT)
- Ground Service:
- Check-in: There was a dedicated business class counter in San Francisco that was efficient with no bells and whistles.
- Departure Lounges: JAL actually maintains a Sakura Lounge in San Francisco. However, it bears little resemblance to its terrific Japanese cousins and there’s little to separate it from any other small, forgettable domestic lounge.
- Arrival: There are two JAL lounges next to each at Narita Airport: the more exclusive (and very well-regarded) first class lounge and the very good, but quite massive, business class Sakura Lounge. At first we thought that we were going to able to get everyone into the first class lounge by virtue of a couple of us having OneWorld Emerald status, but after literally almost 20 minutes of scanning and re-scanning tickets at the front desk it turned out that only I could get in with one guest. That process exhausted about half of our potential lounge time, but we still had a few minutes to grab a robot-poured Asahi and some of JAL’s signature curry.
- Suite Quality (Sky Suite/Apex Suite):
- Seat Comfort: The 787-900 has 44 business Sky Suites that are arranged 2-2-2 across (some cabins are 2-3-2). However, the two window seats are slightly staggered so that each one has direct aisle access, unlike most 2-2-2 business class cabins. Each is 20″ wide when not in lie-flat mode and, at just over 74″ long, they are blessedly long. When the seat isn’t made up as a bed, it does feel a little narrow, but because they aren’t tapered like many business class cabins these days, there’s more room around your feet. The padding is comfortable if not spectacular. The seats controls have more buttons than I knew what to do with…I’m still not sure what a couple of them did. When the seat is made up as a bed, it adds an additional 5″ of width and the extra length and expansive footwells are terrific for tall guys like me. The “bedding” is more of a fitted sheet and doesn’t really add any padding, making for a pretty firm mattress. Still, I had a good nights sleep and appreciated the length and generous foot space.
- Storage Space: This is a big downside of the window seats and middle seats, as most of the team had hardly any storage or counter space. They were primarily using the footrest to set things on. When the seat was fully-flat, they had to set shoulder bags underneath in order to fit things in. I was on the side row next to Nick and had a huge compartment by my head for storage, as well as some additional nooks and crannies that could be used to set things on.
- In-flight Entertainment: The Sky Suite has a generous 23-inch LCD monitor that’s very competitive amongst other business class products. The problem is that there’s really not a lot on it. It’s a mixture of recent hits, lesser-known older movies and a smattering of international fare as well. Looks great, but I’d love to see a broader swathe of offerings.
- Food and Beverage: I absolutely love Japanese food and so chose the Japanese set menu for both dinner and breakfast. Stephen did the opposite and chose the Western menu. We’d heard that both JAL and ANA’s catering is much better when departing from Japan than on flights going to Japan and our experience agreed with that. While there was nothing that was bad, per se, everything was sort of average to above-average. All of our main proteins were overcooked. The beverage list is decent for a business class cabin. The standout on most flights will probably be the rotating Japanese whiskey.
- Service: Uneven. To a person, everyone was warm, friendly and polite. You could tell that everyone attempted to be responsive to requests. But there were some lengthy gaps in service, especially during the first round of cocktails and dinner service. At times, the flight attendants seemed a bit frazzled and I had 2-3 requests (water, drink refills, etc) that were forgotten.
- Cabin Ambiance/Temperature Control: Like many Asian carriers, JAL seems to really like the cabin warm and a couple of us woke up after a couple of hours of sleep in a sweat (this is hardly unique to JAL, though). The cabin overall seems a little bit dated and the 2-2-2 seating leads to some awkward sight lines into other people’s suites (see the picture of Greg below)
- Internet: Man, was it good. We were all able to get a few hours of work done in between eating/drinking/sleeping. Orders of magnitude better than the WiFi on the ANA flight a week later. It does cost $18.80 for a full flight plan.
- Amenity Kit: I’ll be honest, I’m not one to go ga-ga over amenity kits. I have my own stuff that I prefer. I did think the cardigan that was provided was a great touch. It’s somewhat oddly for in-flight use only, so you’re supposed to take it off at the end, give it back to the flight attendants and let it continue on the JAL circle of life. Greg didn’t realize this and inadvertently walked out with his on his back and no one said a word. YOLO, amirite?
- Would I choose to fly it again? I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it and would choose it without hesitation if it was the best option for my schedule. That said, our experience on JAL was a little more uneven than I had anticipated. The 787-900 business class wouldn’t approach my top-5 for Asian carriers.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Well-priced lie-flat points option to Asia from the West Coast
- The seat has unusually great length at 74″
- Rectangular suites creates terrific footwell space
- Service is very warm
- Consistently fast WiFi
- Good quality IFE screen
Cons
- Suites feel a bit worn and are starting to show their age
- At only 20″, the seat is quite narrow
- Unmemorable catering
- Flight attendants seemed a bit overwhelmed at times, creating some service lapses
- Could use better bedding
- IFE selection leaves something to be desired
Image Gallery
Japan Airlines 787 Business Class Seat (SkyApex Suites)
Japan Airlines Business Class Menus
Japan Airlines Business Class Food and Beverage
Japan Airlines Business Class Amenities
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Hi Tim,
I’m looking to fly to Japan next year around June. I was looking at ANA but everything is on waitlist. Do you have a writeup on how to book cheaply to Japan?
My wife and I both have 200K+ MR each and I thought the ANA option was the cheapest.
I hear you clucking. Business awards to Japan have been tough for the last few months. We have this guide that was updated earlier this year. Take a look and see if that’s what you’re looking for.
There is no such thing as a 787-900. Do you mean a 787-9?
If you are in the window seat there is a shelf with a netting over it behind the headrest. It’s a bit unwieldy to get to since you basically have to turn around to get to it but I stored my tablet and other things in it while I was sleeping.
Right at the end of the flight, we discovered this. I worry it’s a good way to forget something though, since it’s behind you,
I recently flew SFO-NRT-MNL on JAL. My experience on the SFO-NRT legs matches your review, especially the lack of significant choices for movies (compared to say, Cathay that seems to have 1,000). The Tokyo-Manila leg was different equipment and much less impressive.
Still, cash price was a fraction of other airlines and the experience wasn’t terrible.
Good to know. My wife and I flew JAL in first class to ORD last year and we were pretty underwhelmed with the experience. A substantially downgraded lounge (I expect largely due to Covid), no caviar aboard, great champagne except they only catered 2 bottles so we only got 1 glass each, a food menu that was actually worse than what you photographed for business class, zero FA’s who were reasonably conversant in English on a USA bound flight, warm cabin, and a few other minor things. That was the second subpar experience on JAL so I’m having problems convincing my wife to try them again. Ironically, I might convince her to try business since the expectations are lower.
The Sakura lounge at SFO is closed, the BA lounge is offered instead.
I flew SFO-NRT recently and I loved it. You could add a mattress to the bed to make it more comfortable. The Japanese menu was excellent. I really liked the seat type, unlike the one with a narrow foot well.
Thanks George. When did you last go to the Sakura Lounge? It was open on 6/1 when we went there, but wondering if it’s closed since then?
I flew on June 30th and the Sakura lounge was closed. BTW, the BA lounge is supposed to be closed from 11am to 1pm, IIRC, which is just before the JAL flights. Ignore that, they stayed open.
Also, I tried to get into the two lounges that accept Priority Pass and they were full. And the renewed AF/KLM lounge no longer accepts PP
Thx for the review – We flew out a few days before your group and had the same impression about the seats being dated.
We also experienced Cathay and Singapore and both of those had better offerings.
The one thing I could not figure out was how to connect from Phx to San Francisco on the JAL-AA reservation so we reposition both ways on Southwest..
Do you have an option for adding a leg to get to San Francisco?
Enjoy your posts. Thx
Thanks for a candid review. I am not sure why this seat consistently gets better-than-reality reviews. The pictures definitely give a dated Hampton Inn vibe. I have one booked and will swap it for a better product if the opportunity arises.
What was the daily pick Japanese whiskey? Excellent review.
Thanks for your unpolished review. It is great to see a blog that isn’t biased and self centered.
Enjoyed the review. Well done!
Except for the fact that both seats (on the window side) are facing forward, it reminds me of BA’s old biz class.