Off to my next adventure by cruising in Asia, I booked JAL Japan Airlines as it’s commonly referred to. Flying with their partner American Airlines to Dallas, a few hours later I’m on JAL Business Class Sky Suites. I’m heading to Tokyo Haneda Airport and leave 10 hours later for Manila. This is a new updated product on their A350-1000 aircraft and my first impressions are very positive. They have stepped out of the box and made lots of improvements to the old business class layouts on most competitors. Colors are black, dark grays, light grays, burgundy and used lots of different materials and finishes to create depth and design. The higher privacy wall around your cubicle is very dramatic and gives you the private cabin feeling right away.
The JAL Business Class seat is definitely wider than I have seen in my other long distance business classes. And the footwell area is just as wide, for more comfortable sleeping. A little thin closet is at the entry with shoe storage below. This allows you to store a carry on bag below the footwell area. A large 24″ flat screen TV takes up the rest of the wall. The main menu has the usual offerings, however I found the movies and TV programming lacking. New releases were really not new releases in the USA anymore. But it was quick and easy to use to find your selection.
To the left of the seat are the controls for the seat and are located below the armrest. Meaning that they can be accidentally touched with your arm or elbow. Light controls are also with lighting provided in the little scounce (nice touch), reading light, area light and footwell light. Below the scounce are all the outlets including 220v, 110v, usb, c, and the plug in for their proprietary headphones. Below that is a wireless charger. Finally someone has allowed you to connect your own headphones wirelessly to their entertainment system! The pairing was quite easy and there are actually 3 options; the bang & olafson provided by JAL Business Class, Bluetooth, and surprisingly in-seat headrest speakers.
Also the of the scounce is a good sized storage cabinet as well as another flip up lid storage box below the outlets. It’s covered in suede to protect your fine valuables. Then a little counter area where below is the diagonal flip out tray table. I struggle with tray tables because of my size, but it was quite accommodating. Windows are the electronic shades and are easily adjustable to completely black out.
Of course there is privacy door with do not disturb feature that you can set on the entertainment system. Above the storage box there is also the wired remote control to do almost anything you can do on the big monitor including seat controls.
It’s worth mentioning that this aircraft has a first class with 8 wonderful private suites in front of business class. Business class is very large as well with 64 seats. Premium economy was also present with about 24 seats.
The menu was designed by Japanese chefs and included traditional Japanese dishes. The western menu provides regular food like seabass and beef tenderloin. The champagne and wines list is appropriate for airline options. There was no usual 2nd meal service 1.5 hours before landing. Instead there was a menu of appetizers and small dishes you could order anytime you wanted via the entertainment system or directly with the flight attendants.
I felt like this was a premium business class and although not quite as nice as Turkish Airlines, it was still in my top 3.
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