JAL President Ueki at JL069 inaugural ceremony at LAX. Image by LAX

Japanese news site Nikkei.com interviewed with Japan Airlines (JAL) President Ueki earlier and asked him about JAL's strategy regarding its US operation after launching Los Angeles - Osaka Kansai route on March 20 2015. Ueki confirmed that JAL is studying the resumption of the Tokyo - Dallas DFW route.

JAL will be adding a 2nd daily flight between Tokyo Narita and Jakarta using JAL SKY SUITE 767. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) announced it will be adding a second daily flight between Tokyo Narita (NRT) and Jakarta (CGK) from June 13 2014. The new flight will depart NRT in the evening, as opposed to the existing morning departure. JAL will be deploying the JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) with JAL SKY SUITE II and JAL SKY WIDER seats on the newly added flights. Below are the NRT-CGK schedule from June 13 2014.

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 will bring back AIR YOSHINOYA for the 5th time! Image by Japan Airlines.

If I have to guess which of the AIR SERIES dishes is the most popular one, AIR YOSHINOYA will definitely but my first guess. No other dishes in the popular AIR SERIES has been served as much as AIR YOSHINOYA did and it has just made another record by returning to the inflight menu for the 5th time! This time passengers on Japan Airlines (JAL) flights from Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco will be able to enjoy the treat.

AIR KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN is back this winter as the 11th installation of JAL's popular AIR SERIES inflight meal. Image by Japan Airlines.

Colonel Sanders is back again this winter! Last year, Japan Airlines (JAL) introduced the controversial AIR KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN (KFC) as the 7th installation of its popular AIR SERIES which JAL cooperates with popular restaurants and food chains in Japan to bring familiar tastes onboard for its customers. Despite some people were skeptical about serving fast food onboard, it was well-received by the passengers. That's why JAL will once again bring back AIR KFC this year to celebrate the holiday since that's what the Japanese have for the holiday. So KFC is now the third company after MOS Burger and Yoshinoya which JAL has collaborated with more than once in the AIR SERIES.

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!

JAL will introduce JAL Original Aroma to its lounges across Japan progressively from September 20 2013. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has developed two JAL original fragrances called JAL Original Aroma and will progressively roll them out to its lounges across Japan from September 20 2013. The JAL Original Aroma oils are blended by fragrance and spatial rendition expert Ms. Midori Magishima and professional aroma oil blender Ms. Chihiro Murai from Promotool.

JAL First Class dessert - Menu BEDD Désir. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) and JEAN-PAUL HÉVIN has teamed up once again to create some special desserts just for the First and Business Class passengers. This time, the world-renowned Japanese master chef, Mr. Seiji Yamamoto and Star Chef, Mr. Chikara Yamada will also participate in this collaboration as these desserts will be part of the JAL BEDD-SKY AUBERGE menus which they are in charge of.

JAL will be serving the special AIR YOSHINOYA on select long-haul flights for a limited time. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) will bring back the popular AIR YOSHINOYA once again as the 10th installment in the AIR SERIES, a special Economy Class and Premium Economy inflight meal which JAL collaborate with well-know restaurants and food chains. AIR YOSHINOYA will be served between September 1 and November 30 2013 on select long-haul flights from Tokyo Narita to Europe and the US.

JAL will enhance services on Honolulu routes from Fall 2013. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) announces that it enhance the services provided on Honolulu routes this fall as part of the JAL NEW SKY PROJECT, which aims to bring passengers a unique and completely refreshing onboard experience and provide service one class above the current standard. This is in addition to the already announced JAL SKY SUITE 767 (SS6) cabin refresh which will be rolled out to the Honolulu routes in 2014. According to Aviation Wire, JAL President Yoshiharu Ueki said these service enhancements are long overdue as competitions has intensified on the Honolulu routes.

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 SKY SUITE 777 service will turn daily on the Tokyo Narita - Paris CDG route from August 15 2013. Image by Japan Airlines.

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.

Time for my 2nd meal

So after taking enough pictures of the familiar Business Class self-service bar and Sky Gallery, I went back to the First Class cabin to watch more movies.

Now it's around 19:50 EDT, around 4 hours after the first meal service. I was finally not as full and had some room to spare for more food. So I started flipping through the menu. Within minutes one of the cabin attendants visited my seat and asked if want something to eat. Yes, even though the lights were off and curtains were closed, the attentive cabin attendants would still keep an eye on the passengers. You could see them periodically peeking through the curtain to see if any passengers needed anything to provide an attentive yet non-intruding service in First Class.

Japan Airlines (JAL) is running a campaigns for Premium Economy trial and lounge service trail on select routes to Europe and America. If you purchase a eligible ticket for travel between August 1 2013 and March 31 2014, you will be able to take advantage of these campaigns.

JAL inflight entertainment video contents for June 2012. Image by Japan Airlines.

Given this was a day time flight, at this point I was not tired at all. So I just kept watching some movies from Japan Airlines' (JAL) MAGIC-III inflight entertainment system (IFE). Although MAGIC-III is JAL's previous generation inflight entertainment system on long-haul flights, it still has the same amount of video contents as the latest MAGIC-V (MAGIC-IV is on regional 737-800 only). It just lack touch-screen capability, some cool 3-D video games and maybe some extra features like SKY MANGA and meal ordering from your controller, but it still comes with full audio video on demand (AVOD) capability in all 4 classes. With that said, the movie and TV selections were rather limited, especially if you don't watch Japanese programs or in some cases don't understand Japanese at all as some of the Japanese channels don't have English subtitles.

Double miles on select US routes operated by American Airlines. Image by Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines (JAL) is running a campaign to give double miles on select flights between the US and Japan operated by American Airlines (JAL). The campaign will run from July 15 2013 till August 31 2013. In order to qualify for the double miles, you will need to a JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) member in either Japan Region or American Region. Also, pre-registration before flights is required.

Cabin attendants handed out bottled water and First Class amenity kits after first meal service

Towards the end of the first meal service, the cabin attendant handed out bottled water and amenity kits to each First Class passenger. Japan Airlines (JAL) used bottled water from Naya on JL005 from New York JFK to Tokyo Narita. These bottles are made from 100% recyclable post-consumer recycled plastic called rPET. Although I am not sure if that was one of the reasons JAL selected these bottle water, at least this helps save the environment!

Desserts at oneworld Business Class Lounge at Los Angeles TBIT

As promised before, this post will mainly consists of pictures of the food offerings at the oneworld Business Class Lounge at Los Angeles (LAX) Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT). I will start from the buffet area closest to the entrance which now is the dessert area. This used to be the place they put the champagne and wines. For desserts, there are 2 kinds of cookies, marshmallow, and some kind of brownie. There used to be one more item when I visited the lounge back in December 2012. I guess that got cut. You can also find plates, silverwares, and napkins here.