Japan Airlines 777-200 (registration JA8978). Image by Japan Airlines

JAL announces its first ever Airbus order today. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has finally announced its first Airbus order today. Up until now, JAL has never ordered a single plane from Airbus and has exclusively ordered from Boeing for its mainline fleet.

The order announced today at the joint press conference with Airbus CEO consists of a total of 31 Airbus 350 XWBs. 18 of these are for the smaller A350-900 model with capacity of around 300 passengers in a typical 3-class configuration. The remaining 13 are for the bigger A350-1000 model which can carry 350 passengers in a typical 3-class configuration for up to 8,400 nm. JAL also has an option for an additional 25 planes.

JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) Business Class cabin. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced the revised flight frequency and fleet plans for the rest of the current fiscal year ending in March 2014, which also include the announcement of the second JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) route! Below are the changes.

JAL might place an order of 20 Airbus 350-1000's by June 2013. Image from Airbus

Japanese newspaper Nikkei reports without citing its source that Japan Airlines (JAL) is studying the Airbus 350-1000 at the moment and might place an order of 20 planes for delivery from 2017 to replace its Boeing 777 fleet currently used on long-haul flights to the US and Europe.

According to Wall Street Journal, Boeing is close to seeking board approval for the go ahead of the 777X jets, which is an updated version of the current 777 planes. Once approved, Boeing can start selling them to customers. But for now, Boeing has made conditional offers to at least 3 customers, including Japan Airlines (JAL), Emirates (EK), and International Airlines Group (IAG, the parent company of British Airways (BA) and Iberia (IB)) to be one of the launch customers of the 777X.

It's this time of the year again which Japan Airlines (JAL) usually downgrade the equipments used on the Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Jakarta (CGK) route due to maintenance of the 777-300ERs used on the North America network. In the past, JAL was able to deploy and 777-300ER with the older generation products on this route. However, as we all know JAL has been retrofitting its entire 777-300ER fleet with the latest SKY SUITE 777 products, the CGK route will unfortunately be downgraded to a 777-200ER instead this year.

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

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.

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.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced the route, flight frequency and fleet plans for first half of fiscal year 2012. Part of that includes a new 787 destination, Singapore (SIN). So far, announced JAL 787 destinations include Boston, Beijing, Delhi, Moscow and Singapore. Below are details of the announced plans.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced their flight frequency plan change for the 2nd half of the current fiscal year. This time they have more increases than decrease in frequency :p Below are the changes effective October 30 2011

Japan Airlines (JAL) added more domestic flights to its list of domestic flight suspensions. This time JTA flights between Okinawa and Ishigaki. Below are the flights affected and the flights passengers on those flights will be rebooked on.

OKA-ISG NU601 07:15－08:15 will be replaced by NU603 08:20-09:20 on Apr 21-28
OKA-ISG NU613 14:05－15:05 will be replaced by NU615 14:50-15:50 on Apr 20, 25-27
ISG-OKA NU612 13:10－14:05 will be replaced by NU614 13:45-14:40 on Apr 20, 25-27
ISG-OKA NU628 20:30－21:20 will be replaced by NU626 19:50-20:40 on Apr 20-27

For complete list of suspensions, you can refer to JAL website (Japanese only)

Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced the latest flight suspensions and capacity cut in May as a response to the drop in demand caused by the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake. JAL added NRT-KIX route to the suspension list. Below is the list of the change

In order to route resources and aircraft to operate to Tohoku region relief flights, Japan Airlines (JAL) has to temporarily suspend some of its domestic flights. Depends are below. All cancellations are operated by 73H, which is the aircraft JAL will use to increase capacity to Tohoku region.

Effective March 27 - May 31
HND-CTS JL3931 09:55－11:30 will be replaced by JL511 10:30-12:05
HND-CTS JL3933 14:55－16:30 will be replaced by JL521 15:30－17:05
CTS-HND JL3932 12:15－13:50 will be replaced by JL510 13:00－14:35
CTS-HND JL3934 18:20－19:55 will be replaced by JL524 19:00－20:35
HND-OKA JL3947 15:20－18:00 will be replaced by JL923 15:55－18:35
OKA-HND JL3948 19:50－22:10 will be replaced by JL924 20:05－22:25

Effective April 1 and April 3
HND-OKA JL3945 06:20－09:00 will be replaced by JL901 06:20－09:00
OKA-HND JL3946 12:55－15:15 will be replaced by JL910 13:35－15:55

Source: JAL website (in Japanese)

Japan Airliens (JAL) has announced a temporary frequency and capacity reduction on some of the international routes (and 1 domestic route) as a result of the weak demand caused by the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake. Below is the list of changes

Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced its 2011 route, flight and fleet plan for 2011. There will be frequency changes, new routes in 2011. Not mentioned in the press release is the upgrade of YVR flight to user the latest regional product: JAL Skyrecliner and state of art MAGIC-V with touch screen monitor in widescreen aspect ratio. Below is the summary of the route plan.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has officially announced its 2010 winter schedule today. There are frequency decrease and aircraft downsizing as expected to improve JAL profitability, but there are also frequency increases and service improvements too. Also from December 1, all JALways flights will be marked with the "JL" code instead of "JO" code to improve operational efficiency.

According to jiji.com (via The Economic Times), Japan Airlines (JAL) will spend 241.5 billion yen in the next 5 years to buy small/mid-sized fuel efficient aircraft.

Back in January when JAL filed for bankruptcy, there were 71 unfilled Boeing orders including 20 737-800's, 9 767-300ER's, 7 777-300ER's widebodies and 35 787's. JAL originally scheduled to take more 773 this fall but I just checked Boeing's website, JAL only has 60 unfilled orders left and Boeing has only delivered 4 738's to JAL this year so far. There are no more unfilled 773 orders left! :( Well this all make sense because JAL don't need anymore large sized aircraft at the moment. Too bad I was hoping to fly on JA744J. I guess that's not going to happen any time soon :(

So if you are hoping for the JAL Suites to make it to the European network, you will have to wait for JAL to reconfigure its older 773 fleet. With JL001/002 downsizing to 772, JAL only has 1 spare 773, not enough to have a daily JAL Suite to Europe :)

J-AIR's Embraer 170 aircraft with COP10 livery, registration JA217J (Source: JAL Press Release)

In case you have missed this, Japan Airlines (JAL) has added the COP10 logo to its Eco-Jet since June 13 2010. This is to show JAL's support to the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity to be held in Aichi, Nagoya in October and to raise awareness for the event and its motto of “Life in Harmony, into the future". Now JAL has decided to add the COP10 logo on more planes.