Review of Skymark Airlines flight Tokyo → Fukuoka in Economy

A visual of my route today from Tokyo's Haneda airport to Fukuoka which will cover a distance of 549mi/884km. 

introduction

Hello fellow travelers! Today I'll be embarking on an exciting new journey across Japan starting with a new airline for me, Skymark Airlines from Tokyo's Haneda airport down to Fukuoka! A little back story; after arriving from my DL flight yesterday from Seattle (which you could find that flight report here) I had a hefty 15 hour layover in between flights. I decided to purchase a storage locker and store my luggage while I explored Tokyo for a bit until about 10p. I returned to the airport to retrieve my luggage from the storage lockers and since I had a very early morning flight, I decided it was not worth it to get a hotel room for the night and took a shut eye overnight at the international terminal. The eye mask from the DL flight and my neck pillow definitely saved the night and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be sleeping overnight at the airport.
I woke up to my alarm I had set at 3:30a and made my way to the arrivals hall here at T3 where I needed to take a shuttle bus to the domestic terminal at T1 where my Skymark Airlines flight will be departing from. I didn't realize it until I looked that the shuttle service didn't began until 4:15am and a queue had already began forming about 40 people deep. Ultimately I had to wait a little longer and take the second shuttle bus that arrived at 4:35am as the first one of the day was already full of people.

The shuttle bus took about 15 minutes to reach T1 from T3 and I was a bit nervous as it was about 45 minutes until boarding would start for my flight.

check-in

When I booked my flight on the Skymark website, I kept getting an error message that I couldn't check-in nor select a seat on my flight. Skymark Airlines has a very similar model to that of Southwest Airlines in the US, they have a fleet of all Boeing 737-800s, offer complimentary snacks/select drinks, allowance of a free 20kg checked bag on all fares and in addition to that they offer free seat selection which I wasn't able to take advantage of. 

I found the self check-in kiosks and tried to see if it'd let me check-in but to no avail. I made line to meet with a very friendly agent and looked up my reservation via my passport. When I asked her if there were any window seats available she regretted to tell me that there were no more window seats available and only aisle or middle seats. She did make a remark saying that she would put me in a row with an empty middle seat which was very nice and I thanked her. 

Overall check-in went smoothly although I have to admit that I was quite bummed to not have a window seat but oh well. Security control went very smoothly and notably the officers at the security control were some of the nicest people! No screaming nor rushing through by the officers, it was really something out of this world (in a very good way ?). Definitely don't miss TSA after going through that. All in all I was airside in just 5 minutes! 

Here's our lovely Boeing 737-800 that'll be taking me down to Fukuoka this morning. 

We'll be departing out of gate 20.

Boarding

Boarding began not too long after. I don't recall there being any designated boarding groups and it was all down to whoever made line first which was a unique.

My seat for the next 1.45hr, 25D.

Sadly no PTV… as expected though.

Legroom was descent at least, these seats offer 31" of pitch. I'm 5'9" or 176cm for reference.

Boarding is complete and today's flight load to Fukuoka looked to be around 90%. I was indeed lucky as I was one of the few rows to have an empty middle seat which made the flight a bit more comfortable.

pushback / takeoff

We pushed back right on time and we passed other fellow BC planes.

See you in a few weeks Tokyo!

Once we climbed passed 10,000ft the FA's sprang into the aisle and offered everyone these very cool Skymark edition KitKats.

A look at the tray table which was of standard size and extendable. 

inflight service

About 35 minutes into flight the FA's conducted the main drink and BOB service. The complimentary options on this flight was coffee or water. 

The FA also gave me cream and sugar along with my coffee.

Although the coffee was very tasty,  the FA barely filled just over halfway of the cup with coffee.

seatback contents

Here's a look at the seatback contents.
First we got an air sickness bag.

Safety instructions card.

Inflight magazine.

This was a great inflight magazine with route information, BOB offerings and pricing, fleet and seat information, etc..

Prices were very reasonable and quite cheap if I must say so. If this were a longer flight I would've definitely taken advantage of some of the offered for sale. 

initial descent / landing

The flight quite literally flew by as we were already beginning our initial descent into Fukuoka. 

deplaning

One last look at my B737-800, thanks for the safe and fun flight!

This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading! I have a small collage of photos below from my short but amazing stay in this city, go check it out ;)

Bonus : Click here display hide

Had an absolute blast exploring and getting lost in this wonderful city. Definitely one of Japan's hidden gems aside from the other big 2 cities (Tokyo & Osaka).

Luckily for me during my short stay there the weather was absolutely perfect (being mid September).

Fukuoka Tower

Definitely would recommend coming down to this part of Japan if you want to experience something more local and not too touristy as Tokyo or Osaka. Hopefully soon in the future I'll be coming back to visit this beautiful city!