The monorail runs at fairly frequent 10 minute internals to the airport during the morning rush, and I reached Haneda shortly after 8am with a long buffer for my 9:55am departure.
It is a step-free passage straight into Terminal 3 from the monorail platform, and the airport was already buzzing at this early hour. JAL has 3 aisles for check-in although my Economy counters were in just 1 aisle. They have taken a page from Air Canada to piss passengers off with technology. We first go to a kiosk to scan our passport and input our flight details to check in and print the bag tag. However, there is a specific way to insert your passport and there are no signs on the machine itself to tell which is the "right" way. I had to flag a staff after noticing the kiosk was stuck at the processing stage with no error message.
Next was to line up for the bag drop machine, which had a longer queue but there were staff to direct people to empty machines. After scanning my boarding pass, it was straight forward to send my case off.
I then headed upstairs to the observation deck to check out the activity. The international terminal had a bit more variety of birds but it wasn't anything substantial. The weather was great and I could see all the way to Skytree. I really like Japanese airports for keeping this feature when elsewhere around the world, these public spaces are becoming increasing rare.
One level down is a big mall selling souvenirs for your last minute desires and also a lot of restaurant options. Similar to my previous visit years ago, prices are not substantially higher than in the city.
Despite the huge crowd in the check-in areas, security and immigration were manageable and I even went for the manual passport counter instead of the kiosk as it had less people. Air-side was another story though. It was quite busy and it was hard to walk a straight line through the terminal.
I set my eyes on the souvenir shop and the 7-11, which sold the typical favourites such as packed sandwiches and rice balls. Again, prices were not higher despite its airport location.
I noticed a few pecularily Japanese features, such as machines to buy travel insurance and a board with travel advisories. Unlike the past where they would post what those issues would be on the world map, nowadays it had QR codes instead.
Unfortunately, we were given a bus gate today even though not all the terminal's stands were taken. Boarding was timely although the downstairs bus lounge was small and it was hard to see which line is which. The buses were of the nicer kind with front-facing seats, just like a typical city bus. They did need to fill them up full before setting off, and I was on the last one out, luckily with a seat.
During online checke-in the night before, I noticed this version of 787 had a much more generous seating arrangement of 2-4-2 in Economy, 1 seat less per row than its competitors. Legroom was wonderful - closer to a Premium Economy offering, and I knew right away this would be a spacious and comfortable flight.
We had a full loading and pushed back slightly behind schedule at 10:02am, which in itself was quite an amazing feat to board a widebody by bus. However, it was a long taxi to the side runway, taking off towards the north 23 minutes later, making a quick 180-degree turn so my right window seat can command a wonderful view of Tokyo and Yokohama in front of me.
The Tokyo views surely did not disappoint.
Yokohama has a much smaller skyline but it is so well-connected to Tokyo as a single huge urban area.
With blue skies and good visibility, I had high hopes my right window choice would pay off. Not long after, I could see a snow-capped Mount Fuji in the distance and it was a marvelous view as we climbed into high clouds and the land disappeared from our eyes. Picture perfect!
Land would re-appear as we neared Nagoya, but we would return to the clouds soon after.
Soon, it was time to eat. The chicken rice tasted decent and I expect catering out of Japan to be pretty good.
Happily satisfied with the good legroom and Fuji views, I relaxed for the remainder of the flight and soon noticed Hong Kong's suburbs and we're about to land from the east.
I left the plane a very happy customer. Finally, there is an airline that is not trying to cram the most number of people into the sardine can! While Japan Airlines is probably chasing for a better off type of customer and not the low-cost clientele, I would likely pay a bit more premium to sit in their more spacious cabin if I choose a legacy carrier next time.
For flights out of Tokyo to Hong Kong, always pick the right window for the best likelihood of seeing Fuji. Pick the left for the inbound flight to Japan.
