A while back Japan Airlines (JAL) announced that it will expand its inflight Wi-Fi service, JAL SKY Wi-Fi, onto the 767-300ER, 777-200ER 787 fleet within the current fiscal year. Today JAL announced more details of this rollout plan.

Japan Airlines (JAL) announces the JAL SKY Wi-Fi service expansion plan today. JAL will install eXConnect from Panasonic on its 777-200ER, 767-300ER, and 787 fleets aggressively to provide inflight internet service on long-haul flights to North America, Europe and Southeast Asia.

JAL will revamp its domestic fleet with LED cabin lighting that changes based on season and time of day. Picture shown above is the design for spring. Image by Japan Airlines.

[Updated with Domestic First Class layout, breakdown of the retrofitted fleet, and wi-fi rollout schedule]

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced it will expand its JAL NEW SKY PROJECT, which aims to provide a one-class above the current standard on its flights, to its domestic fleet. Currently, JAL plans to retrofit 77 of its planes which includes 777-200, 777-300, 767-300, 767-300ER, and 737-800 with the new interior based on the theme of "Superior Cabin". Domestic First Class service will be added to part of the 767-300ER fleet as well! The first rollout is planned for May 2014. Other than the cabin interior, JAL will also introduce its JAL SKY Wi-Fi service to these retrofitted planes as well.

JAL will launch JAL SKY SUITE 767 on December 9 2013. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has finally announced the launch date of the new long-haul Boeing 767-300ER cabin dubbed JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6). As reported before, JAL will launch SS6 on December 9 2013. Initially it will be deployed on the Tokyo Narita - Vancouver route and will be progressively expanded to the Tokyo Narita - Kuala Lumpur route in January and other long-distance routes in Southeast Asia and Honolulu routes in fiscal year 2014.

JAL VISIT TOKOKU! special livery. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has been running the Tohoku Support Project - "VISIT TOHOKU!" since June 1 2013 to help supporting the area affected by the Tohoku earthquake. Recent initiatives include discounted domestic tickets for foreign visitors to visit Tohoku region and international charter flights to Tohoku. The latest project is to create a special livery to fly all over Japan to promote the VISIT TOHOKU! project awareness. And you get be part of this special livery by contributing your Facebook profile pictures! Also through that, you will be helping to plant some sakura trees in Onagawa, Miyagi too!

JAL updates the booking engine with JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) seat map. Image from JAL website.

[Update: Flights in December have been loaded with SS6 configuration and initial SS6 service is only 5-6 weekly on the two routes]

Japan Airlines (JAL) has finally loaded presumably the JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) seat map for the Tokyo Narita - Vancouver and Tokyo Narita - Kuala Lumpur route today. Flights JL018 and JL017 from December 9 2013, and flights JL723 and JL724 from February 1 2014 now shows the new seat map on certain days which no longer identifies the seat type in Business Class and no longer shows the type of inflight entertainment system onboard. This usually means JAL is in progress of rolling out a new configuration, which in this case is the new SS6 configuration. If you look at the seat map, it does not even have the new style layout with a nice plane outline!

JAL will update the long-haul 767-300ER fleet with the New Sky cabin. Image by Japan Airlines.

[Update: Added JAL SKY SUITE II development details]

Finally Japan Airlines has unveiled the details of it long-anticipated long-haul 767-300ER (763) retrofitting plan. The newly retrofitted 763 will be dubbed as SKY SUITE 767 and will be shown as SS6 in the timetable. Just like the 777-300ER fleet upgrade, the SS6 theme is to provide a New Sky experience 1 class above the current cabins and extra personal space.

JAL Doraemon Jet 2013. Image from Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines (JAL) announced the JAL Doraemon Jet 2013 couple of days ago but has kept the actual livery a "secret". But thanks to spy shots on Japanese aviation site FlyTeam and the inflatable JAL Doraemon Jet toy, we were able to get a sneak peak of the livery. But today the JAL Doraemon Jet finally took off and JAL has finally officially unveiled the special livery with a Japanese press release.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced it will be flying a Boeing 767-300ER painted with special Doraemon livery domestically in the coming months. This is to promote the 2013 Doraemon movie: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum scheduled to be released on March 9 2013.

When JAL announced their 2nd half route, fleet and frequency plan, they only mentioned the existing flights on the Tokyo-Sinapore routes will be switching from 763 to 787 in mid October. Now JAL has finally released the full 787 rollout schedule on this route. The rollout will be on October 14 2012 with 3 weekly flights operated with 787-8 on both of the Tokyo Narita (NRT) and Tokyo Haneda (HND) flights. It will turn into a daily 787-8 service from October 28 2012

[Update: Added seat manufacturers information]

Finally, Japan Airlines (JAL) announced the specifications of the next generation long-haul inflight products in all classes. These new seats will first be rolled out on Tokyo Narita (NRT) - London Heathrow (LHR) route starting from January 2013 and will be expanded to New York JFK and the rest of the long-haul Boeing 777-300ER fleets. Also, JAL has plan to update the seats used on the long-haul Boeing 767-300ER fleet too with the latest full-flat seats and other new seats in the second half of 2013!

Japan Airlines (JAL) will increase the capacity on its daily Tokyo Narita (NRT)-Vancouver (YVR) route from October 28 2012 due to increase in demand. Currently JAL deploys its latest 767-300ER with MAGIC-V and JAL Skyrecliners on this route but will switch to 777-200ER with MAGIC-III and Skyluxe.

JAL x Samantha Thavasa Jet 2012 (Source: JAL Press Release)

Last year, Japan Airlines (JAL) collaborated with Samantha Thavasa collaborates to launch a series of campaign including the domestic "JAL x Samantha Thavasa Jet" which flew domestically between Tokyo Haneda and Sapporo New Chitose, Osaka Itami, and Fukuoka. Since the campaign was such a success, JAL has decided to collaborate with Samantha Thavasa again this year. And they will have both domestic and international version of the "JAL x Samantha Thavasa Jet" this time!

Japan Airlines (JAL) has made some changes to its Honolulu (HNL) flights between November 18 and 14 2011. JL073/074 (NRT-HNL) are no longer shown on the schedule on certain dates and the other two Narita flights are upgraded to 777-200ER and 777-300ER service while the Haneda flight sees a downgrade from 777-200ER to 767-300ER. Also, JAL is offering First Class service on JL071/072 on selected dates and the F cabin is quite full on those dates too! Below is the schedule between November 8 and 14.

[Update 3: JAL has yet made another slight modification to the seat map. For the latest version of the seat map, please refer to this post]
[Update 2: JAL has updated the 787 seat map. The seat maps shown on this page is outdated. For the slightly outdated version of the seat map, please refer to this post]
[Update: Added link to JAL NRT-BOS route page]

Japan Airlines (JAL) loaded the seat map of its 787 used on the new NRT-BOS route tonight. It has 2-2-2 configuration in Business Class cabin, and a 2-3-2 configuration in Economy Class cabin. This is just like the 763 cabin! It has a total of 237 seats (30C 207Y). In fact, if you look closer, it has the exact same configuration (minus the galley and lavatory) as the 767-300ER's A41 configuration. Below is the seat map taken from JAL website. (Please note that this is from the booking engine, not from the JAL aircraft configuration page. Therefore it could just be a placeholder until the final seat map is out as some have pointed out 7 seats per row in Y is a bit generous)

Seattle Times reported that Japan Airlines (JAL) has found some metal shavings left inside the fuel tank of their latest 767-300ER (JA654J). JAL troubleshoot the fuel imbalance problem of the 763 fuel tank and found small metal particles inside! The article did not say it's JA654J but you can tell from the delivery date.

Japan Airlines unveils the first plane with the new Tsurumaru livery. It organizes a special domestic tour to Hokkaido before its debut on international routes. Below are links to Japanese articles which includes some picture of the new 763 (JA654J). Also today JAL will have its last 747 flights. So keep an eye on the 747 retirement news :)

http://www.sankeibiz.jp/business/photos/110228/bsd1102281046008-p2.htm
http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=201102/2011022800030&rel=j9
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110228-00000004-maiph-bus_all.view-000
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20110228-00000003-maiph-soci.view-000

Special Tour for JAL new livery. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) announced more details on the roll out of their new Tsurumaru livery. Although they won't be changing the company logo until April 1 2011, the new livery will debut a month ahead of the change. JAL has just received a brand new 767-300ER (which happens to be the 999th production 767) with registration number JA654J. This will be the first plane with the new Tsurumaru livery. As you can see in the delivery video on KPAE Paine Field, the plane was delivered without finishing the paint job. Body was painted with the new livery's white but the rudder was painted with the on Arc of The Sun livery. JAL will do some painting before rolling this out.

JA654J had its first test flight at Paine Field yesterday. There's a picture of it at PaineAirport.com

Unfortunately they haven't finished painting the new livery yet and the rudder (rear part of the tail) has been painted the old "Arc of The Sun" too :eek: But this could be the first plane with the new JAL livery. So I will keep an eye on this plane to see if we can see the new livery before its official debut :)

Source: @ikarosairline