Review of Japan Airlines flight from Tokyo to Osaka in Economy

Introduction

Given that me and my wife had planned to stay about nine days in Japan with the first three days staying in Tokyo, which I enjoyed a lot, it was now time for us to move to our next destination in Japan. As I was visiting Japan for the very first time, the obvious next stop was going to be Kyoto, which is probably a destination that would be visited by most in their very first visit to Japan. 

As I really wanted to try out the shinkansen while being in Japan, I initially looked for tickets from Tokyo to Kyoto and was quite shocked about the price they were charging for a three hour train ride to Kyoto. (A single one way ticket with Shinkansen was about the same price I paid for two tickets with JAL to Itami).

So instead of taking the shinkansen (which I opted to take later from Kyoto to Osaka), I decided to book us a ticket with Japan Airlines from Tokyo Haneda to Osaka Itami. There were a lot of flights on offer for the same price, but as JAL was using a 767-300, a plane I have never been on, I decided to book my ticket with them for a total price of 130 USD (2 persons, one-way).

Transportation to Haneda

Given that we spend our three days in Tokyo in a hotel in close proximity to Akihabara's train station, we decided to book us a seat with Airport Limousine to Tokyo Haneda for about 2200 yen (1100 yen per person) as I feared that trains would be packed given that we had to leave for  Tokyo Haneda around 8-9ish in the morning, which I expected was going to be rush hour.

The bus itself was very pleasant with free WiFi and decent legroom (I'm 1.83m (6'') and had no issues at all). Not a lot of passengers hopped on at this location, however the bus was about 90% full when we reached our next stop before heading to Tokyo Haneda.

About an hour into the ride, we were now closing in to Tokyo Haneda while spotting this unique livery of StarFlyer.

The airport limousine bus stops at all terminals, though we disembarked at terminal 1 given that Japan Airlines operates out of this terminal for their domestic flights.

Tokyo Haneda International Airport

Terminal one is divided into southern and northern departures and my wife and me were a bit confused at first as we didn't realize this fact and our flight was not showing up on screen. While strolling a bit southern through the terminal, we now realized that our flight was showing in this part of the terminal, while all the other flights we saw earlier were not on the screens.

This made me realize about a sign earlier (which I didn't give much attention to before) stating that the terminal was divided into departures depending on your destination.

And not much longer  I eventually found our plane to check-in and drop off our luggage.

The entire process from checking in to boarding is quite different to what I'm used to within Europe and/or Southeast Asia as I received instructions by mail from Japan Airlines how it works out a few days prior to our flight with a QR code attached to this specific mail, which you will need to use.

By scanning this QR code, one can obtain it's luggage tag from one of those counters.

Obviously once you have obtained your luggage tag and added it to your bag, you will now have to proceed to one of those stations to drop your luggage by scanning that specific QR code once again. So far it's been self explanatory.

Once clear of your luggage, my wife and me went through security where you get this slip when scanning your QR code with information regarding your flight, however information is obviously subject to change.

Security itself was a breeze and did not take more than just a few minutes to clear.

Power Lounge North Terminal 1

The domestic terminal 1 offers two lounges so far I am aware. One of JAL and one owned by Power Lounge, which you can access through by Priority Pass. You can also buy access to it for approximately 1500 YEN, which is very cheap, yet you have to recognize that only coffee/tea and juices are free of charge and all other things one has to buy.

While this place is suppose to be a quiet place where one could retreat to in order to escape the terminal, I found this lounge to be rather overcrowded (though not noisy as Japanese are very quiet when in public) and found the terminal itself to be a better place to relax with comfier seats and a nicer atmosphere.

Some beers on sale with a dedicated ale made for Haneda itself.

A limited choice of juices, water and milk.

Coffee or Tea is served by two machines.

Paper cups are only available to have your choice of drinks.

A limited choice of snacks or pastries are available or some special drinks on offer, though you have to pay for it.

The view of the lounge is probably the best thing giving you a spectacular view over runway 35L, which was used today.

So after my thirty minutes my wife asked me whether we could leave the lounge as she was getting a bit hungry and I also felt like escaping from here and decided to find ourselves something to eat.

Spotting Aircraft

Initially I thought this Boeing 767-300 in Disney Livery was going to do our flight to Itami as it was pulling into stand, however about 10 minutes later I realized that they did move our gate to a different one.

This Airbus A350-900 of Japan Airlines was departing to Fukuoka as JL313.

Followed by this Embraer 190 of J-Air, which was departing to Miyazaki as JL689.

This Airbus A320 of StarFlyer was overtaking the E190 of J-Air for it's flight to Fukuoka as 7G 45.

Back to the terminal

Eventually our gate was changed to a gate near some eateries and we sat down to have some cold soba noodles with a Tsuyu dipping sauce.

The seating near our gate which was not overly busy and I found those seats to be pleasant to sit on.

And at last we meet the bird that was going to bring us over to Osaka Itami. JA612J, a 19.9 year old Boeing 767-300ER that has solely been flying for Japan Airlines in a domestic configuration and was newly delivered to them in March 2005. 

It is also my first time flying the Boeing 767 as this aircraft is pretty rare within Europe.

The flight

Boarding was called right on time and went extremely fast with all passengers adhering to all instructions and actually only queu up when boarding was called. If only all passengers could be like this, boarding an aircraft would become a very relaxed thing. The aircraft's load was 100% in all cabins, yet boarding took no longer than 15 minutes in total.

Upon embarking our aircraft for today's flight, I was kindly greeted by all flight attendants who I met on my way to my seat and they seemed to be very cheerful and helpful. Legroom is also impressive for a flight that was scheduled to be only about an hour long. Padding of the seat was also very comfortable.

Also the cabin's lay-out is in a 2-3-2 configuration, which is very pleasant.

The view from my seat 30A.

Despite it reducing the legroom marginally, JL did bother to install their Boeing 767-300's with a plug that is capable to charge either an USB-A or USB-C device.

Attached to your armrest, you could find some control buttons to control your reading light, press to call a flight attendant and some options to change channels. I didn't try it myself, but I assume you could listen to a variety of music, though I'm not sure whether it was working or not.

A view of the cabin with the flight attendants doing their final checks before pushing back.

Also the cabin is not equipped with individual air vents and I must admit that the cabin was on the rather hot side, so it's quite a shame one can not adjust their temperature to their preference.

The aircraft was rather in good condition, though did show signs of wear, which I assume is normal for a bird that is almost 20 years old.

About three minutes past our scheduled departure time we were pushing back with the final goodbye wave from the ground crew for our flight to Osaka.

Quite an queu was building up for Runway 35L, yet we were on our way to Runway 05.

And about 13 minutes past our scheduled departure we were airborne.

The table in front of me was clean, though once again showed quite some wear and tear.

The literature one could find in the seat pocket contained of a safety card, a disposal bag, a magazine and a WiFi Card

Before the flight attendant came by to serve us our complimentary beverage, I decided to check out whether the in-flight WiFi was working, which it did and free of charge.

Japan Airlines does provide you with a complimentary beverage ranging from coffee/tea to some juices and I opted to grab a cup of coffee and asked for some milk. It's nice to see that Japan Airlines does provide you with some proper condensed milk rather than some creamer.

As I barely finished my cup of coffee, the flight attendants came by for clean up as the aircraft was already into a straight-in approach for Osaka Itami.

We touched down with an absolute banger about nine minutes ahead of schedule.

With just a short ride of about three minutes, we were pulling into our stand and disembarkation was engaged soon after.

Before leaving and waiting for a gap into the line of people exiting the aircraft, I quickly decided to grab a photo of our seat on today's flight and those seats nowadays are really unheard of in Europe nowadays.

The business class in Japan Airlines domestic configuration. Not entirely sure whether it is worth it to actually take those seats on domestic flights as the seats in Y are already very pleasant.

The final views of the aircraft that brought us over. I must admit that the flight attendants were fantastic on our flight as they were smiling all flight long, taking their time to serve and answer passengers and actually doing their best to give us an enhanced experience on board.

After a quite distant walk from our gate to our belt, it took about five minutes for luggage to appear. Unfortunately our luggage was the last to be on the baggage claim, so it took quite a while for it to appear, but at least one of the passenger has to be the unlucky one to be the last, right?

We walked to Itami's busstation, bought us two tickets (about 17 EUR) for the next bus to Kyoto, which took about 55 minutes or so to reach.

Thanks for stopping by and if you fancy some touristic photos of Kyoto, see below, but of course I'm not going to reveal the entire destination as the city has a lot to offer.