Japan Airlines has rolled out a trial service at Haneda Airport Sakura Lounge. During the trial period between December 1 2009 and February 28 2010, JAL will provide a limited number of personal TV sets for passengers so they can watch TV at the Sakura Lounge. For details, you can refer to JAL website (Japanese only)

Due to growing concern that Japan Airlines may file for bankruptcy, and therefore delisting itself from Tokyo Stock Exchange, JAL stock has dropped to all time low today. At some point, the stock even hit 60 yen and ended the day at 67 yen. How come it's taking this long for the Japanese Government to decide on what to do with JAL?

Source: AFP via Google News

Japan Airlines has posted the February program listing for its inflight entertainment network. The only repeated movies are Surrogates, Michael Jackson's That Is It. Below are the movies available on MAGIC-I and II.

Japan Airlines has announced yet another change/devaluation to its JMB program. From April 1 2010, booking class "L" will NO LONGER BE ELIGIBLE for upgrade awards using JMB miles nor upgrade points. This doesn't affect me much personally since the lowest transpacific fare eligible for upgrade awards is H and K for Japan and Asia flights respectively. For details, you can refer to JAL website. So what's next? Change in elite benefits? Less bonus miles? Any guess?

As expected, Japan Airlines once again extends the popular SUPER discounted upgrade award promotion. The promotion which originally ends on December 31 2009 will be extended to March 31 2010.

Another devaluation of JMB program :( Japan Airlines has announced the termination of the hotel award. According to JAL Hong Kong website, JMB Hotel Awards will be terminated on March 31 2010. Hotel awards will no longer be accepted after March 31 2010. The last check-out date for hotel awards will be April 1 2010. You can refer to JAL website for details.

Japan Airlines has announced mileage accumulation rate will be revised from April 1 2010.

Business class "I" fare accumulation rate will be reduced from 125% to 70%. Further revisions for applicable JAL Economy class for mileage accumulation will also be revised on/after April 1 2010. JAL will announce the details in January 2010. This is definitely bad news :( You can view the full announcement on JAL website.

I finally have time to work on the new look for the blog (more like modifying other people's template :P). There are still couple more minor problems in the layout. But I am going to call it for the day after manually modifying each of the old post such that the "Read more »" link will appear. Enjoy the new look :)

Nikkei reports that Japan Airlines plans to stop hiring ex-CEOs as honorary/senior advisors. Haruka Nishimatsu, JAL CEO, sent letters to 7 former employees, including ex-Presidents Toshiyuki Shinmachi and Isao Kaneko, informing them about the decision. They will step down as early as February.

Source: Nikkei via Bloomberg

Japan Airlines has released its X'mas/New Year period traffic forecasts. Due to all the flight suspensions and capacity reductions, load factors will improve but total number of passengers will decrease. There will be 76 and 119 additional international and domestic flights respectively. Transpacific routes will see a 96.7% load. But my return flight doesn't see that full in business class. Does it mean we will see quite a number of op-ups :P For details of the forecasts, you can refer to JAL Press Release.

Japan Airlines cabin attendants will be singing X'mas songs in Tokyo! There are 11 shows planned at different locations. Every year the cabin crew and other JAL employees volunteer to give a X'mas concert to visitors of Japan.

Opodo travel news from the UK has reported Japan Airlines has offered its congratulations to Boeing and is keening waiting for the first delivery of 787. In the article, it also mentions JAL will be using the 787 on new long haul services.

Ashai News (in Japanese) reports that Japan Airlines is likely to choose Delta over American Airlines as its overseas partner. But Asahi does not cite its sources and JAL "strongly denied" the report. Reuters has a brief translation of the article.

Japan Airlines has announced its withdrawal from the Shizuoka Airport today. JAL will suspend all routes connecting Shizuoka from April 1 2010. JAL currently operates 1 daily flight to Sapporo and 3 daily flights to Fukouka from Shizuoka. The Shizuoka Airport was opened on June 4 2009, which means JAL's Shizuoka routes does not even survive for a year :(

Source: JAL Press Release (in Japanese)

LAX oneworld lounge

Switching from the non-alliance lounge to the oneworld lounge at LAX is definitely an upgrade for Japan Airlines business class (non-oneworld elite) passengers. The part I like most of the oneworld lounge is the hot food!!!

Finally Japan Airlines started uploading the J and Y menu on its December flights (F menus have been uploaded long time ago). Instead of doing the usual menu change at the beginning of the month, JAL decided to do the change on December 15 instead. And they kept delaying the menu upload (from end of Nov to early Dec but now they are still uploading. E.g. LAX-NRT hasn't been uploaded yet!)

To find out menus on your flight, you can visit JAL website (Japanese only)

PS: WOW the steak looks so good on NRT-LAX flights, I might just pick the western option for the first time on my return flight :)

Japan Airlines finally changes the toothbrush packaging! If you have seen the business class amenity kits on JAL, you will easily notice the toothbrush has a different packaging than the rest of the items. Not anymore! JAL finally changed the toothbrush packaging to match the rest of the amenity kits.

Amenity Kit on 2009-11-15 JL062

JAL Business Class "amenity kit"

Finally here are some pictures from my trip back in November. Below are the snacks available on my Japan Airlines flights in November.

Rice crackers and nuts packages in JAL Business Class

Can't believe I wait this long to write up the trip reports for my November flights on Japan Airlines. I took JL061 on November 4 and JL062 on November 15. So it took me almost a month to finally start on this report (sorry I have been kind of busy). And in a few hours, I will have to add one more to-do trip report to my list since I am heading out to LAX for my next JAL flight :P. This time I try to divide the report into different topics (easier for me to write :P). The first two parts are about the snacks and amenities. Enjoy!

Remember the "Let's do Something" movement back in September when Japan Airlines employees and CEO handed out flyers on the street? JAL employees did it again but the difference this time is JAL retirees joined them :)

Japan Airlines has announced more capacity and frequency cuts for the remaining of the fiscal year. Narita-Sao Paulo and Narita-Pudong will see frequency reductions while Narita-Beijing, Haneda-Beijing, and Haneda-Hong Kong will be switched to smaller aircraft.

Japan Airlines has uploaded volume 22 of their Today's topic, the video you see onboard on JAL flights. This time the topic is about JAL Group activities in support of children.

Michael Moore was in Japan promoting its latest film and had a press conference. During the conference he apologized for his attire and explained the japanese airlines lost his luggage. You can see the full conversation in the video below.

Delta President Edward Bastian told reports in Tokyo today that they are willing to raise their offer if requested by the Japanese government according to Reuters.

oneworld has issued a press release outlining the details of its offer to Japan Airlines. It also explains why oneworld is the "best" option for JAL.

Below are the highlights:

1. All oneworld airlines' CEO reaffirm support to JAL
2. The offer to JAL is value at USD1.8 billion, which include cash investment and revenue opportunity.
3. oneworld has the most suitable hubs and network for JAL and could deliver more premium passengers to JAL than Skyteam.
4. JAL has to best chance to get antitrust immunity approval with AA and therefore securing a stable and successful future.

Bloomberg reports that AA, together with Oneworld and TPG, will offer as much as $1.1 billion investment to Japan Airlines. This is double of the amount Delta offered. The report doesn't provide investment distribution though. It would be interesting to see which OW carriers and how much they are willing to invest on JAL. My bet will be AA is the one who provide most of the investment since they will be the biggest loser if JAL to jump ship to Delta. But this is just MY GUESS

Japan Airlines has posted the January program listing for its inflight entertainment network. The only repeated movie is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which is actually from October. The rest are all new. Below are the movies available on MAGIC-I and II.