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 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!

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) will be introducing User-Preferred-Routes (UPR) on its Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Vancouver (YVR) route from December 19 2011. NRT-YVR will be the third destination country in JAL networks to take advantage of UPR after Japan - Honolulu and Tokyo Narita - Australia switching to UPR in August 2008 and June 2009 respectively. JAL estimates that this can save them a total of 220,000 lbs of fuel and therefore reducing approximately 315 tons of carbon dioxide gas emission a year