Jakarta route temporarily loses First Class service

It's this time of the year again which Japan Airlines (JAL) usually downgrade the equipments used on the Tokyo Narita (NRT) - Jakarta (CGK) route due to maintenance of the 777-300ERs used on the North America network. In the past, JAL was able to deploy and 777-300ER with the older generation products on this route. However, as we all know JAL has been retrofitting its entire 777-300ER fleet with the latest SKY SUITE 777 products, the CGK route will unfortunately be downgraded to a 777-200ER instead this year.

Right now the change is still being shown as a temporary measure and is only effective between April 11 and June 16 2013. During this time, the CGK route will temporarily loses First Class service as the 777-200ER used does not have First Class cabin. The configuration will be W51, with 56 JAL Shell Flat Seats in Business Class, 40 JAL Sky Shell Seat in Premium Economy, and 149 seats in Economy Class. The inflight entertainment system will still be MAGIC-III with audio video on demand (AVOD) though. However, JAL SKY Wi-Fi service will not be available.

As of right now, CGK route is still scheduled to resume First Class service on June 17 2013. And JAL Suite and JAL Shell Flat NEO seats will continued to be used after the resumption. But expect more downgrades coming as JAL continues to retrofit its 777-300ER fleet. However, depending on how JAL routes its planes, CGK might actually get an upgrade later when more 777-300ERs have been retrofitted :)