JAL SKY SUITE 777 social media campaign. Image from Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just launched a social media campaign to promote their new cabins and services to be launched on the Tokyo Narita - London Heathrow route in January 2013. All you have to do is to post some messages with your Facebook, Twitter, or Mixi account and you will be entered into the lucky draw for one of the three great prizes.

As we know, Japan Airlines (JAL) and British Airways (BA) have received approval from authorities and will start their joint business from October 1 2012. JAL has just announced the details of the joint business and more importantly the enhanced JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) benefits that comes with the new joint business. Basically, the agreement is very similar to the one we saw with American Airlines (AA) with comes with elite flight bonus and enhanced accumulation rates. Below are the details.

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

AA32 on June 2 2012

AA32 flight path (Source: FlghtAware)

Flight: AA32
Date: June 2 2012
Aircraft: Boeing 767-200
Seat: 7A (Business Class)
Scheduled Departure Time: 13:45
Actual Departure Time: 13:40
Scheduled Arrival Time: 22:07
Actual Arrival Time: 21:58

The boarding time listed on my boarding pass is 13:15, 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time. So I walked over to gate 46A at around 13:15 and was expecting a line and chaos around the gate. To my surprise, AA had finished boarding everyone who waited at the gate already!? There was again no line at the gate. I guess they must have started boarding much earlier. And the flight ended up departing right on time and arrived JFK a bit early! (Somehow FlightAware's departure and arrival times are different than the ones listed on AA website)

Due to the recent political conflicts between China and Japan, there's an irregular change in travel demand between the two countries. As part of the restructuring effort, Japan Airlines (JAL) has adapted a system such that they can act fast to respond to sudden change in travel demand like this. As a result, JAL has decided to temporarily reduce the frequency on 3 of its routes between China and Japan.