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) has just announced the plan to increase frequency on the Tokyo Narita (NRT) - New York JFK (JFK) route to 2 daily from March 30 2014. The newly added flight will be operated with a Boeing 787-8 (788) with Business Class and Economy Class service only.

JAL to provide English version of SKY MANGA

JAL announces that it will finally roll out the English contents to its popular SKY MANGA, the world's first electronic manga service onboard. A total of 6 sets and 30 volumes of English manga will be available through MAGIC-V inflight entertainment system installed on the 787s. This is on top of the 38 sets and 100 volume of Japanese contents already available right now. JAL plans to update the content every 3 months.

Flight status of JL007 shown on JAL website

[Update: Added flight load]
[Update 2: Added flight cancelation notice]
[Update 3: Added description from JAL daily 787 operation update]

A Japan Airlines (JAL) 787-8 performing flight JL007 from Boston (BOS) to Tokyo Narita (NRT) has returned to Boston after takeoff due to aircraft maintenance on July 18 2013. The plane landed safely at 18:16 EDT.

New ANA long-haul configured 787-8 seat map with Premium Economy and 9-abreats Economy Class seat. Image by All Nippon Airways

All Nippon Airways (ANA) has just published a new 787 long-haul configuration with includes a Premium Economy cabin and a new 9-abreast 3-3-3 configuration in Economy Class. The new configuration will have a total of 169 seats, up from the previous 158-seat long-haul configuration.

[Update: Added AP report to the end of the post]
[Update 2: Nikkei confirms the repair was done by Boeing workers]
[Update 3: Added JAL explanation quote and plane registration info]

Japan Airlines (JAL) has resumed 787 service on June 1 2013 after four and a half months of grounding. The first 787-8 (788) flight was JL035 from Tokyo Haneda (HND) to Singapore (SIN). It was operated with JA825J, which happens to be the first 788 delivered to JAL. It departed at 01:02 from gate 113 and took off from runway 34L 01:23 and landed at SIN 5 minutes ahead of schedule. Japanese aviation site Aviation Wire has an article on JAL and ANA's first scheduled 788 service with some pictures. Above is JA828J departing from HND on June 1, I assume that's flight JL021 to Beijing (PEK).

JAL resumed 787 service with JL035 from Haneda to Singapore and it landed ahead of schedule according to status posted on Japan Airlines website.

However, the service resumption did not go as smooth as one has hoped. JAL has found pressure difference inside and outside the battery compartment in one of the 787s and had to take that out of service for further investigation.

You know this is coming! Japan Airlines (JAL) is celebrating the launch of the new Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Helsinki (HEL) route with a double mileage campaign! JAL Mileage Bank members who have registered for this campaign and fly on this route between February 25 and May 31 2013 are eligible. Below are the details of this campaign.

Yesterday, Japan Airlines (JAL) has successfully launched their first new route after it re-listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange earlier this year. This 4 weekly 787-8 service to San Diego is the first ever non-stop scheduled flight linking Asia and San Diego, the 2nd largest city in California behind Los Angeles.

We all know Japan Airlines (JAL) loves to organize special tours especially when they launch a new route or when they retire an aircraft type from their fleet (they recently announced a 2-day domestic tour for the MD-90 retirement and more details will be released on November 20 2012). So it shouldn't be a surprise that JAL will be organizing a special tour for the new Tokyo Narita (NRT) - San Diego (SAN) 787 route launch this December. It will be a 5 day tour and you will be able to fly on the inaugural flight JL066 from NRT to SAN on December 2 2012. Below are the details of the itinerary.

JAL 787 was greeted with water canon salute at SIN. Image from Changi Airport Group

[Update: Added link to the SIN commencement flight album on Strait Times]

There were two special Japan Airlines (JAL) 787 flight that took off yesterday. The first one is commencement flight of the recently unveiled JAL x Ghibli special decal JET (JA828J) for the SORA wo TOBU (Fly the Skies) project. And the second one is the launch of 787 service to Singapore. Below are the video and links to pictures of these two commencement flights.

Special JAL x Ghibli 787 livery for the SORA wo TOBU project. Image from Japan Airlines

[Updated with link to photo album of today's official reveal event from Mainichi Daily]
[Update 2: Include YouTube video of the plane posted by Yiuchan in the comment]

Japan Airlines (JAL) finally reveals the long awaited special JAL x Ghibli special decal JET 787 livery for the SORA wo TOBU project (it means Fly the Skies project) today. The SORA wo TOBU project is a collaboration between JAL and Studio Ghibli aiming to bring you the "Dreams, Joy and Delight of Flying the Skies". JAL has been showing some special inflight programs created by Studio Ghibli is the past couple of months, including an exclusive short animate created by director Hayao Miyazaki. Another part of the collaboration was to hold a drawing competitions for kids and use the winning entries to decorate a special 787 plane.

Today Japan Airlines (JAL) announces February 25 2013 as the launch date of its Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Helsinki (HEL) 787 service. Previously, JAL planned to start this service in March instead. Given its location is much closer to Japan compared to other European gateway and the 35 minutes minimum connection time (MCT) for transit passenger in their compact terminal, the new NRT-HEL flight will offer JAL passengers a stress free and shortest transit experience to many Northern, Central and Eastern European cities.

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

According to TBS News, Japan Airlines (JAL) flight 442 from Moscow Domodedovo (DME) to Tokyo Narita (NRT) landed safely at NRT on August 21 2012. But post-arrival check found that 6 of the front wheel screws were missing. NRT Runway B was closed briefly for 15 minutes to look for the missing screws. JAL deploys its state of art 787-8 on the DME route. As shown by the video on TBS site, the aircraft involved was JA825J, which was the first 787 delivered to JAL. No words on the cause of the incident yet.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced changes to their schedule for the second half of the current fiscal year ending in March 2013. Quite a lot of the changes, mainly 787 deployments, have been announced before. But there are also some frequency and aircraft changes on regional and domestic flights that are new. However, the press release does not mention anything about the Saturday equipment change on Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Vancouver (YVR) route which upgrades the aircraft to from 767-300ER to 777-200ER with JAL Shell Flat seats that is currently loaded into the schedule. Below are the details of the JAL Group plan for the second half of FY2013.

As you all know, Japan Airlines received their first two Boeing 787s (JA825J and JA822J) about a month ago and JAL has just launched the new Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Boston (BOS) route on April 22. But the launch isn't as smooth as expected. JAL has to delay JL007 (BOS-NRT) on April 25 for 24 hours due to aircraft maintenance issues.

Japan Airlines (JAL) is set to receive 2 more 787 deliveries in the very near future. As a result, JAL is able to confirm the 787 service commencement dates for Delhi, Beijing and Moscow routes.

Finally! Japan Airlines (JAL) has uploaded its official 787-8 seat map to its website. The long-haul configuration of the 787 is called E01.

JAL uploads official 787-8 seat map (Source: JAL website)

Japan Airlines (JAL) has updated its Japanese version of the 787 special site to include the full schedule of their training flights. As reported earlier, JAL is now performing training flights till mid April to train their staffs ahead of the start of the 787 commercial service. Below are the training flight schedules of the two 787s.

In preparation of introducing Boeing 787 into service, Japan Airlines (JAL) will begin 787 training flights on March 30. So if you want to see the JAL 787 in action, you can go visit Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda, Osaka Kansai, and Nagoya Chubu during the training period which will last till mid April. Below are the planned schedules for these training flights.