Japan Airlines (JAL) is set to receive 2 more 787 deliveries in the very near future. As a result, JAL is able to confirm the 787 service commencement dates for Delhi, Beijing and Moscow routes.
JL749/JL740 Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Delhi (DEL)
JAL will commence 787-8 service on the DEL route from May 1 2012. 4 of the 5 weekly flights will be downsized from 777-200ER to 787-8. JL749/740 will be operated with 787-8 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, and 777-200ER on Thursday. So Premium Economy will only be provided on Thursday's 777-200ER flights after May 1.
JL441/JL442 Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Moscow (DME)
All 3 weekly service (Mo, Th, Sa) will be downsized from 777-200ER to 787-8 from May 7 2012. As a result, premium economy service will be discontinued.
JL023/JL024 Tokyo Haneda (HND) - Beijing (PEK)
Daily HND-PEK service will switch from 767-300ER to 787-8 from May 7 2012.
A quick check on JAL booking engine shows all flight schedules have been updated but some seat maps aren't. JAL probably has to reassign the seats before they can roll out the seat maps one by one. Right now I am seeing correct 787 seat maps on flights on the commencement dates but some Beijing flights still show 767-300ER seat maps while 787-8 is listed in the schedule. Similarly, the DEL commencement flight is still showing a 777-200ER seat map.
After checking seat maps for all three routes, looks like jAL will be using the same E01 configuration used on Boston flights. This makes sense as this will be JAL more flexibility in fleet rotation at least at the beginning when they only have limited numbers of 787-8s.
Hello JALPak,
ReplyDeletefirst of all, thank you very much for the great and informative blog about JAL.
Im considering these days, to use my 10 upgrade points this year on JALs new 787. What do you think, how the chances will be like to get an upgrade from Y to C on one of the new 787 routes, especially NRT-DEL (rt) in Oct. (Is DEL 5 UPG points per oneway or is it 6 UPG points like European/American routes?).
Or do you think they will be introducing the new C cabin on long-haul flights while we still can use UPG points/before end of march 2013? Im not sure about it and still, there would be the question if we could manage to get upgrades on these routes, if C cabin gets smaller.
Sorry for the lots of questions. Cheers and regards from FRA !
It is 5 UGPs one-way on NRT-DEL. Upgrade will probably be harder than before due to a smaller C cabin in 788 compared to 777.
ReplyDeletePersonally I would spend the UGPs on your flights to/from FRA. Mainly because it is so much cheaper to upgrade on DEL route due to the elite promo (http://www.jal.co.jp/121campaign/ug_superdiscount/index_en.html) I would just spend 17,500 miles to do the upgrade.
There's no guarantee that FRA route will get the new fully-flat seats by end of March 2013 when the last UGPs expire. So I would just spend them on the current products instead.
Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteI agree to your points. Not having the JAL elite promo in mind, I was considering to use the 10 UPG points for the NRT-DEL roundtrip. But sure, compared to the elite promo, this is just waste of UPG points.
Right now Im also considering the NRT-CGK route, where I could upgrade to JAL suite using just 6 UPG points. Should be a nice trip, too! Just cant decide, if Id better upgrade on the outbound flight (and enjoy NRT F lounge and maybe better japanese food options) or take the inbound flight (and enjoy the flat bed and tempur mattress). Hard decision! ;p