I flew on ANA’s domestic 777!
ANA, or All Nippon Airways, is the largest airline in Japan, and is generally seen
as one of the best airlines in the world. In addition to an extensive international network,
they also connect many cities within Japan, and some of those routes are
flown with dedicated widebody aircraft configured just for domestic flights.
Now that is an important distinction. Japan is one of the few places in the
world where you can fly on widebody planes that operate flights as short as 30 minutes long.
That’s mainly due to the sheer population density here, with 125 million people living
in roughly the same area as 2/3s of the Canadian Province of Alberta.
So, having already tried out their main competitor on another domestic flight,
I wanted to see what ANA had to offer. Towards the end of our week in Japan,
we spent some time in the city of Osaka, the third largest in the country by population.
We headed towards the Dotonbori district, and honestly, just enjoyed the atmosphere here,
which only got even better after the sun went down! Walking around the night market
here was a whole experience of its own. The next day, we got to see… almost the
opposite of that just northeast of Osaka, in Kyoto. Kyoto was the capital of Japan
from 794 until 1868. Today, it’s considered the country’s cultural capital, and is one of
the most popular tourist destinations here. It is not hard to see why that’s the case,
and getting to see Old Kyoto and all of this traditional Japanese
architecture for ourselves was amazing. That’s not to mention visiting one of
Japan’s most famous shrines, which has literally thousands of torii gates leading up this mountain.
After spending most of our time in the more contemporary cities, this was absolutely a
highlight. Just for the record - a week in Japan is definitely not enough time.
Sadly, we soon had to make our way back to Tokyo to catch our next flight back across the Pacific,
and to do that, we headed back to Osaka. The city of Osaka is served by a few
airports. Kansai Airport, built on an artificial island, is the main international airport for the
region. There’s also Kobe Airport, another one built in Osaka Bay, used for domestic flights.
Itami Airport, meanwhile, is more centrally located, and despite its official name
of “Osaka International Airport”, it handles exclusively domestic flights.
Itami Airport has one main terminal building, split up into a north and south terminal,
with each serving one of the two major Japanese airlines.
We chose ANA for this flight, again, because I’ve never flown with them before,
and because they operate 777s on the Itami to Tokyo route.
We booked ourselves in ANA’s Premium Class, which apparently had its own dedicated check-in area.
The price for this worked out to be about $200 Canadian dollars more than Economy,
which as you’ll soon see, turned out to be well worth it.
We took the escalator up to the second floor where ANA had their Premium and frequent flyer
check-in. Surprisingly enough, they also had a dedicated security checkpoint here too!
I was not expecting that, especially when we didn’t really pay that much extra for this ticket.
A Premium ticket on ANA also gets you access to their lounge here at Itami,
which was just down the hallway from that screening point.
This lounge had a genuinely impressive amount of seating, with lots of space and natural light.
It, however, only had drinks and snacks available,
which I suppose makes sense since these are just domestic flights.
In addition to that though, the lounge here had some amazing views outside, with a panoramic
look at pretty much the entire airport, as well as ANA’s special C-3PO livery 777!
In a cruel twist of fate, this plane was actually
operating the flight to Tokyo just before ours, only an hour apart.
Still, this was a great place to sit with some snacks and
drinks just watching things happen outside.
As “Threepio” pushed back, sadly not with us on it, our 777 was just arriving,
a 17-year old 777-200ER, registered as Juliet Alpha 715 Alpha. This plane was delivered to
ANA in May of 2006, and has stayed with the airline its whole life. It seems to
have been configured for international flights until 2016, with a more premium heavy layout,
until it was converted to a much denser, two-class domestic configuration.
This’ll also be the first time I’ve flown on one of the “first” generation 777s. The only
777s I’ve flown on have all been Air Canada’s newer ones, so this should be a nice treat!
After watching C-3PO take off, we eventually made
our way back down towards the gate area as our flight started boarding.
There is some shopping and food available near security,
but for the most part the gates didn’t seem to have much near them.
You can tell that the waiting areas are quite widebody-sized though,
given just how many people fly this route each day.
Premium Class passengers board with group 2,
so we lined up there and headed down the jetway to this 777.
The Premium Cabin on this plane has 4 rows in a 2-3-2 configuration.
My seat back to Tokyo is in the last row in 4A.
Settling into the seat, I was immediately struck by this unbelievable amount of space.
The fact that this is what you get on a less-than-an-hour long flight is insane!
After I sat down, a cabin crew member welcomed each Premium
passenger on board individually and offered a pre-departure drink.
Since the flight is so short, I’ll take a look around the seat now while
boarding finishes up. On the right side are a number of seat controls,
as well as the tray table which pops up from the armrest.
Also on the right is this remote for the in-flight entertainment,
and a universal power outlet with USB charging too, in this useful storage cutout.
Each seat also has this large, adjustable headrest with a reading light,
and the extra width just makes this feel incredibly spacious!
Waiting in the seatback pocket in front was this complimentary pair of slippers,
and even these headphones too!
Also there was an air sickness bag,
and this beautifully designed safety card for the 777-200ER.
Quite possibly the best part of all though, at least for us airplane nerds,
was this wonderful view of that Pratt and Whitney PW4000.
These first-generation 777s were developed with three different engine options, but there aren’t
a whole lot of these PW powered ones still around today. This seat was the perfect spot
to hear them though, so please enjoy this amazing sounding departure from Osaka, off of runway 32L.
What an absolutely gorgeous departure that was! Today’s flight from Osaka to Tokyo took
only 51 minutes in the air, and covers a distance of just over 400 kilometres.
That did not give me a ton of time to show everything,
so I got up to look around the cabin a bit the first chance I had.
Like I was saying before, Premium Class seats 28 passengers in 4 rows,
in this very wide 2-3-2 layout. On some 777s,
you normally see seats of this style in a 2-4-2 layout instead because the fuselage is so wide.
I also like the dividers in between the seats too,
that gives you a nice sense of privacy even in a domestic business class seat.
The rest of the cabin is a slightly different story as you’d expect. Economy Class,
in a 3-4-3 layout, starts with a few rows right behind Premium and continues to the
back of the aircraft, where it narrows to 2-4-2.
That makes for 364 Economy Class seats, for a total of 392 seats on
this ANA 777-200ER. Apparently, this configuration is a little bit newer,
and there is another one with one less row of Premium that seats 405 total.
That being said, ANA does still have some 777-300 non-ERs that seat a whopping 514 people!
Back in my seat, we were already passing over
Nagoya and got a fantastic view of Chubu Centrair International Airport.
That’s another one of a few Japanese airports that are built on artificial
islands, which was really cool to see in person!
Soon after that, the in-flight service started. Given that we just got drinks
on our previous flight with JAL’s 767, I honestly wasn’t expecting a whole lot,
especially since this flight was even shorter.
That’s where ANA really blew me away. These meal trays were given out to each Premium
passenger, which included a bento box, chopsticks, a chocolate, and some water.
This even came with a little fold out menu, which had a nice welcome message,
and even labeled the contents of the box too! What a nice touch!
We also had our choice of beverages, and I had some green tea with this.
The box itself was beautifully presented, and consisted of…
…A Japanese omelet with grilled salmon and chicken,
…Simmered hijiki seaweed,
…Takoyaki with beans,
…Some simmered vegetables,
…And lastly, some sushi wrapped in deep-fried tofu.
There was also this small chocolate cookie to polish it off.
All of that was absolutely delicious,
and quite possibly the best airplane food I’ve had on a flight this short!
Again, the fact that each of these were labeled was such a cool idea. I would’ve eaten it all
regardless, but I just never expected to get that quality of catering on a 50-minute flight.
If all of that still wasn’t enough, that’s where we got treated to this
beautiful view of Mount Fuji, with a lenticular cloud just covering the peak.
I think this is genuinely one of the most enjoyable domestic flights I’ve had,
and that view is just icing on the cake.
It was so enjoyable that I nearly didn’t get a chance to film the in-flight entertainment
until we were descending. ANA has this nice interface with plenty of Japanese
and Western media to choose from, as well as some ANA-specific content.
They have this modern moving map,
and the remote even shows you how much time is left in the flight, too!
With that though, we were following the coastline
of Tokyo Bay with some more great views on the approach.
Here’s the arrival into Haneda Airport, with this windy, but flawless landing on runway 22.
So that was a domestic flight in ANA’s Premium Class,
and… that was a genuinely stellar experience!
There was so much to like about this flight, from the dedicated check-in and security at Itami,
to the lounge, the seat, and that food on board,
it is now very clear to me why ANA is considered one of the world’s best airlines.
The fact that we got all of that on a domestic flight for a still
reasonable amount really sets the bar high for domestic business class around the world.
I’m also glad I got a chance to fly on their 777,
it is one of my favourite planes, and that wing view I had was just perfect.
I definitely need to fly on one of the non-ER 777-300s at some point though, since there
are just a handful of them left. Hopefully ANA’s will still be around the next time I visit Japan.
Whenever I do make it back though, I will happily fly with ANA again,
and I think they just became one of my favourite airlines.
Thanks so much for watching my experience with ANA, and I’ll catch you next time.