The Honolulu to Tokyo route is hotly contested as Hawaii is a very popular destination with Japanese tourists. It’s been long served by Air China, ANA, Delta Air Lines (Northwest Airlines had the route), Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, Korean Airlines and United Airlines. To distance itself from the competition, Japan Airlines has upgraded its Boeing 777-200ER service on the route.
The new cabin interiors started serving the Tokyo-Haneda to Honolulu route on December 15, 2017. The Osaka-Kansai to Honolulu route started on January 9, 2017 and the Nagoya to Honolulu route on February 25, 2017.
This is a fully lie flat seats in a 1-2-1 configuration consisting of 42 seats. There is a movable divider between the seats in the middle of the aircraft. In terms of entertainment, the seats comes with a 17″ screen. Every seat has inseat power, USB ports and LED lighting.
There are 40 seats in a 2-4-2 configuration, so unfortunately, there is a chance you may have a middle seat. The seats comes with a 12.1″ screen except for the bulkhead seats which are 10.6″. In addition, the seats have a 42″ pitch with a seat width of just under 19″ and are equipped with in-seat power and USB port and a video input port. The seats also come with leg and foot rests and there is a small divider at the head position between seats which add a small degree of privacy. They’ve even added a plastic bottle holder.
In this cabin, the configuration is 3-4-2, which is an odd configuration as opposed the normal 3-3-3 for nine abreast seating. JAL says that they’ve done this configuration to accommodate groups who travel in two, three and four. There is a generous 34″ pitch here with 154 seats with a personal screen of 10.6″, touch screen entertainment with USB port and power ports.
JAL says they will do their best to ensure that an upgraded airplane is on the route, however operational issues may prove otherwise. The reasoning here is that all the Boeing 777-200ERs are not yet fully converted. So check it out the next time you’re flying that route. JAL is a part of the oneworld alliance, so if you are a member of say the American Airlines AAdvantage program you can earn miles on JAL as they are a partner.