Review of ANA flight Tokyo → Bangkok in Business

Alright, I know what you’re thinking. “But Hometoyyz,” you’re saying. “You advertised this as Around The World in Seat 1A! First Class all the way!”

Yes. You’re right. I did advertise this series as that. And then something happened. In particular: and then Thai Airways happened.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up a bit, shall we. When last we saw each other, I had just arrived into Narita on ANA First Class, and was on my way to find the transit desk for an as-yet-unnamed airline to continue my adventure. Except I guess I’ve spoiled it… the transit desk in question was Thai Airways.

At this point, I expected to be writing…

UA6127 YYZ-IAD 3/28/2016 - http://flight-report.com/en/report-13714.html
NH1 IAD-NRT 3/28/2016 - http://flight-report.com/en/report-13739.html
TG677 NRT-BKK 3/29/2016 - You are here

… in anticipation of the short, but fun, six-hour jaunt down to Thailand on Thai’s awesome A380 First Class product. And now, I will share with you the story of how that came not to be.

I made the long underground walk between the 50 gates and the 40 gates at Narita’s Terminal 1, because Thai’s transit desk is near gates 45/46/47. When I arrive there, there’s a shared desks with stations for Air Canada, Thai, and Singapore. Only the Air Canada part is staffed.

I ask the young woman staffing the AC desk when I might expect Thai to show up. She says she’s not sure. I explain my situation — on a flight in about two hours, but no boarding pass — and she says they should be at the gate about an hour before my flight. I say I’d really like to hit the lounge, but need a boarding pass to do so, and she suggests they might be able to help me up in the lounge.

It’s worth a try, so upstairs I go to the ANA Suites lounge, the lounge here for ANA and Star Alliance First Class customers, as well as top-tier ANA travelers. I explain my situation once again to the lounge attendant, and after producing my itinerary on my phone, she lets me in. She looks up my flight details, and tells me we’ll be departing from Gate 46 downstairs, but then she drops the bomb.

The new departure time for the flight is 9:00. That’s almost four hours later than scheduled departure. I have a layover of about three hours in Bangkok this evening before moving on to my next destination on this trip. I’m not a math expert, but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work.

I head into the lounge, and grab a seat — a friendly attendant follows me in, presents me with a hot towel, and asks me for my drink preference. I ask for water, which is cheerfully and quickly brought over.

My first step is to check Flightradar24 to see just what’s going on here.



Yep. That’s going to be a problem.

I pull up my itinerary just about anywhere I can, and there doesn’t appear to be any changes made to it on the ANA Web site, the Thai Web site, or the Saudia Web site (which helpfully lets you check any itinerary for which you know the ticket number, regardless of airline.) So about this time, I figure perhaps Thai representatives will be downstairs at Gate 46. I can’t find a useful contact number for Thai here, so that’s my next best guess.

Downstairs, though, Gate 46 is currently in use, by ANA for its late-afternoon departure to San Jose, California. Back upstairs to the Suites Lounge I go, where I explain my predicament, and ask if there’s any way to get in touch with Thai here at the airport, since I’m apparently going to misconnect. They refer me to the ANA concierge manning the front desk with two lounge agents, who takes down my particulars, and urges me to go take a seat and relax. A Thai agent will be in touch with me here in the lounge.

Another young lounge attendant notices me coming in, so another hot towel and another glass of water. I take a seat, connect to the Internet — which is good and fast, although I find it odd that ANA demands to know your age range and gender before you connect — and try to figure out what, if anything, I can figure out to improve my situation.

About five minutes later, one of the front-desk attendants comes and gets me. “Thai Airways would like to speak to you, on the phone, out front. Please come with me.” So I do. And on the phone, there’s a Thai agent here at Narita, whose English is better than my Japanese, but that ain’t sayin’ much. She tells me that because TG677 is so late, they’re rebooking me on NH805, which leaves at 6:20, just about an hour later than I’d expected to be leaving Narita, and meaning my layover in Bangkok is going to be fairly short. But there’s no First Class on this flight, so they’ll have to book me in Business class. I’m none too happy about this, but ultimately, it’s a way to prevent this whole trip from going sideways on me, so I accept that.

I tell the ANA concierge of the situation, and ask if she can print me a boarding pass. She says she can’t as yet, but she’ll figure it out and bring it to me in the lounge. Back to my seat I go.

A few minutes later, I decide to pull up my reservation on ANA’s Web site, and sure enough, it’s been modified. And there it is, clearly showing… I’ve been confirmed on NH805 in Business Class… Tokyo to Bangkok… at 6:20 pm…. tomorrow.

Well, that’s just made the situation a whole lot worse, hasn’t it?

Back to the front desk, I show the modified booking to the ANA concierge, who looks pretty aggrieved about the situation. She motions for me to sit down at her workstation just off to the side of the main desk, and we’ll figure this out.

She gets on the phone, and talks to the Thai agent in her native tongue, I presume pointing out the slight miscalculation she’s made. She’s on and off the phone a few times, as I sit there. First, she wants to make sure they’re not putting me on NH807, a 787 flight to Bangkok, which I’d prefer to be on if I must take a downgrade. But unfortunately, that flight is boarding right now.

About this time, I check my itinerary on ANA’s site again, and find that NH805 today has been added, but is showing as waitlisted. The concierge says she’s working to get it confirmed.

Finally, with about an hour before boarding time for my new flight, she asks for my passport, disappears into the back room, and comes back with a boarding pass. She explains that there’s no First on this flight, and seems decidedly more apologetic about the downgrade than did the Thai agent, despite this mess not being her airline’s fault in any way. She explains to me that on this 777-200, business class is a 2-3-2 affair, which I presume means ANA’s oldest and most decidedly outdated business class product. And a long way from the Thai A380 in First Class.

There are two upsides here — one, at least I should make my onwards connection; and two, this is showing on the boarding card as a separate paper ticket, with my Aeroplan number listed. So perhaps I’ll get some Aeroplan miles for this flight.

Anyway, with the situation finally resolved, and 1,300-plus words into this flight-report, let’s get this flight-report started, as we continue the slightly-modified Seat 1A Around the World (except for that one flight in 4K) experience.

UA6127 YYZ-IAD 3/28/2016 - http://flight-report.com/en/report-13714.html
NH1 IAD-NRT 3/28/2016 - http://flight-report.com/en/report-13739.html
NH805 NRT-BKK 3/29/2016 - You are here



Confession: My mood at this point is less than ideal. While ANA has been lovely to deal with and has saved the day heroically in my opinion (the lounge concierge in particular), I’m still pretty cranky at having been downgraded, although I know these things will happen… and more likely WILL happen when one is dealing with Thai Airways. I have attempted to judge the experiences on this flight based on their own merits, as a business class flight. Although I will no doubt point out that this is not the experience I had paid for or expected, I will try to main objective in my assessment of ANA’s product and performance, as this whole mess was not their fault.

But if I get to Bangkok and find out my onwards flight has been delayed by four hours and so I could have made the A380 flight in First Class, I may just have a complete, kicking-and-screaming-on-the-floor three-year-old-style meltdown. Consider this fair warning.

I have about 45 minutes before boarding of my new flight to Bangkok at this point, so I decide to head into the Suites Lounge once and for all, and take advantage of it and do some actual flight-reporting.

ANA’s choice of branding its first class lounge is somewhat odd, given that it doesn’t really brand its first class product as “suites” — the newest product is First Square — and the lounge itself is not particularly suite-ish. But, whatever. At this particular lounge, they have to field a lot of Star Alliance business class or Star Gold passengers who are confused by what lounge is where.

The lounge itself is a decent size, with comfortable seating in black and decent privacy in a few locations.



Airside views are great, as with most NH lounges here.



A few choices of reading materials for those who are so inclined.



While this lounge doesn’t have the same full-service a la carte dining experience one might find in some other First Class lounges, the outstanding feature of the lounge — as with many NH lounges at NRT — is the noodle bar, wherein one can order any from a number of choices of made-to-order hot dishes — including a hamburger, oddly enough — from a window. There’s also a small “dining area” for those ordering from the noodle bar. Or, really, doing anything else, for that matter.



There’s a decent self-serve bar.



Coffee and draught beer.



Soup and a variety of small bites.



A few hot dishes, although the fried chicken I enjoyed in the business class lounge last month isn’t here. Not first class fare, I suppose.



Sandwiches, salads, and a few other small plates.



Sushi.



I take a seat in the dining area, and what do I find waiting below me but my ride down to Bangkok this evening. Unfortunately, it is not a Thai A380. Sigh.



I’m not starving by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t resist having a bite from the noodle bar. I order the curry udon, and it’s up in about five minutes or so. It’s great. Just delicious. My mood improves a bit. I accompany it with a glass of Pocori Sweat “ion water,” a disgustingly-named beverage with which I inexplicably fell in love on a trip to Japan a few years ago.



Having chilled out a little bit over my udon, it’s time to head downstairs, where the Priority boarding line is already fairly long. I grab another quick pick of my ride and join the lineup.



Boarding is called just about on time, and I’m on my way to Bangkok, just a little bit late, and definitely a bit downgraded.

Flight: NH805
From: Tokyo Narita (NRT)
To: Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (BKK)
Date: 3/29/2016
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200ER
Registration: JA709A
Seat: 4K
ATD (STD): 19:04 (18:20)
ATA (STA): 23:28 (23:00)



Yep, this is not quite the same seat experience as I was expecting for this flight. Bummer. It’s a 2-3-2 recliner setup, looking just a little bit aged.

Very old-school manual seat controls in the arm side. I haven’t seen these controls for a number of years, since AC got rid of the last of the “pineapple” 767s it sent on low-yield routes like Vancouver-Hawai’i.



The seat comes with a standard NH pillow and a light blanket.



IFE remote control and headphone port.



Legroom is decent — at least it’s got that going for it.



Service begins with menus being distributed.



Drinks on offer.



And the menu for this evening’s dinner.



Service continues with a hot towel.



And some sparkling wine.



Unfortunately, IFE can’t be used on the ground as this old seat set-up is a flip-up screen. At least it’s AVOD. So it’s got that going for it. But really — even aside from the letdown factor of not getting the A380 First Class experience I was expecting, this is not a very good business class product. Even for a “regional” flight (albeit one of six hours length), and especially not for an five-star airline. The seat itself is comfortable enough, but I’d hope this product is being taken out sooner rather than later and replaced with (at least) the Business Cradle product NH offers on its non-staggered 787s.

We’re loaded up on time, and we push back, but the captain quickly comes on and lets us know that we’re going to be delayed by about 20 minutes due to congestion on the ground at Narita. It’s a pretty boring wait without the IFE system running, so in the meantime, here’s a look at the ANA-offered headphones. They’re pretty mediocre, but they’re better than my noise-cancellers, for which I have allowed the batteries to run dry. Ooops.



Finally, we line up and we’re into the night sky away from Narita. Once we’re off the ground, the screen comes up. Happily, they’ve got a very similar lineup of films as the NH F flight I came in on, which means I can pick up Creed where I left off (fell asleep) on my last flight. Victory! I thought it was a very good movie.



Fortunately, the seat next to me would remain empty throughout the flight, as the load was about 50 per cent in business on this flight. So that’s almost the same as aisle access 1-2-1 in a semi-suite upper-deck A380 first class seat, right? Right? Sob.

This crew is very good — I like them a lot, although communicating in English is more of a challenge than has been the case for me on other NH flights. Probably because the flight attendant serving me primarily is very young — lovely, super-friendly, and appropriately attentive, but not super-strong on English. Of course, my Japanese is non-existent, so advantage her. It just made communications a little bit awkward. Not a big problem though.

She takes my drink and meal — I go Japanese — order, and in very short orders, tablecloths are set, and rinks brought around. A bit more champagne. Just because.



Next up are the amouse bouches, which I usually enjoy on ANA. Everything is good here, although the cup with the Mediterranean mix of fish, feta, olive and sun-dried tomatoes, as well as a the pickle wrapped in dried beef, is a star here.



One thing I will say about this crew — service was very fast, which was great for a flight timed like this, on which a little bit of a nap probably seems like a good idea. My tray with my first dishes is quickly offered.



Everything was okay. The asparagus wrapped in dried pork was great, as was the tofu-wrapped item. The clam wasn’t great. And I didn’t brave the prawn. Again, maybe this is just my North American bias speaking, but why in the confines of a plane, would you present a prawn in its full shell?



I wasn’t quite sure what this dish was — I presume based on the menu it’s the squid — but it was quite good.



But this little salad with some pork — and surprisingly, a prawn — accompanied by a nice little dressing, was the star of the appetizer course. All in all, a decent set of appetizers.



Again, the main course is quickly brought by when I’m done my appetizers.



As is usually the case with NH Japanese courses in my experience, the main is fish, and it’s simple and it’s really nicely prepared, and it’s delicious. Very nicely done.



Miso soup is pretty good.



White rice is.. ummm… white rice.



I do love me some Japanese pickles — especially that pickled sour cherry. Fantastic.



After dinner, plates are quickly taken away, and in short order, the trolley is brought by with cheese and dessert. I say “don’t mind if I do” to both.

The cheese course is nothing special, but not bad either.



Dessert is a little lemon cheesecake. Quite tasty, although presentation isn’t fantastic.



After dinner, coffee and tea are offered, but I decline. As it ends, the person in front of me reclines. Yep…. that’s a lot of recline.



Worth noting: Seatguru describes this seat as “angle flat.” Seatguru is wrong. While recline is great — although it really makes it hard to stand up when the seat in front is reclined all the way like this — it’s nowhere near an angle flat. Just a really big recline.

Wrapping up dinner service, a chocolate is offered, a hot towel presented, and a bottle of water handed out.



I’m impressed by how quickly dinner service was done on this flight. In fact, dinner was done and over by the time I was done with Creed — and I’d fast forwarded through the first half or so of the movie, having watched it before falling asleep on my way to Tokyo. I’d say that it was little more than an hour after wheels-up that dinner was done. Which left lots of time to kill on the rest of the flight.

I decide to kill that time by sticking with a theme. I put on another Rocky film available on the plane — Rocky IV. And also sticking with the theme, I get through about the first hour, and promptly fall asleep.

I’m okay with this — I want to be decently rested for my next flight connecting out of BKK, where hopefully this First Class experience will get back on track. But I’m surprised by how well I sleep — getting about four hours of solid sleep despite the less-than-ideal seat for sleeping purposes.

When I wake up, there are lot of people snacking around me. And surely enough, I’m not awake for more than two minutes when the flight attendant leading service for our aisle comes around and asks if I’d like anything to eat or drink. Not feeling particularly peckish, I decline the food, as much as I’d really like some more NH ramen. But I do take her up on a drink, requesting the Hibiki whisky.



Because — say it with me, Lost in Translation fans — “for relaxing times… make it Suntory time.” Very good.

A quick check of the moving map confirms we’re getting close to Bangkok.



Descent is smooth enough, but quite cloudy, and we touch down about 11:30 pm — leaving me more than enough time to make my connection, but not enough time to really get the ideal Thai BKK First Class ground experience. Thanks again for that, TG.



It’s a fairly long taxi around BKK before we finally settle into a gate. The crew wishes us all a fond goodbye, and I’m on my way back up the jetway, where hopefully I’ll get at least a little taste of the TG F BKK ground experience.

But that’s another story for another flight-report, and we’ll pick up the adventure at that point next time around.

Thanks for reading!