Japan Airlines (JAL) 787 Business Class (Sky Suite III) Redeye Review: Tokyo – Bangkok

Rating: 4/5 (Comfy seat, solid food. Overall, hard to beat for a 6 hour redeye)

Route: HND-BKK (JAL33 depart 1:20AM arrive 5:50AM)

Price: 70,000 AAdvantage Miles + $17.20. Note this is the cost for this flight AND my previous flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo in Japan Airlines 777 business class. This is why American Airlines miles are worth hoarding.

Introduction

At this point on my trip, I was already 20+ hours into my travel day with not one, but two more flights to go. At this point, I was starting to question how well I had planned this trip. I knew it would be physically challenging, but I was starting to feel seriously fuzzy at this point. Luckily, all my flights were in business class except the last one. Even then, at this point my brain was not functioning normally. I (partially) blame this on the lack of comfortable lie-down chairs / areas at the JAL Business Class Lounge at Haneda airport. First world problems.

For my next flight, I’d be flying from Tokyo Haneda to Bangkok in JAL business class, before making one last short hop on Singapore Airlines (in economy) from Bangkok to Singapore.

I was slightly worried about this flight because I generally read negative things about the hard product on this aircraft (“Sky Suite III” business class seat). To my surprise, it was super comfortable – I would even say I prefer it to the older & more popular Apex product (see my review of that seat HERE).

In this post, you’ll find:

Japan Airlines’ soft product is consistently one of the best in the world, but their hard product offerings on international routes are incredibly inconsistent. Here are all their business class products:

The most common product on long haul routes are the lie-flat seats: Sky Suite I, II, and III, and if you’re lucky the new A350-1000 suite.

I booked this flight with 70,000 AAdvantage miles + $17.20. Note this includes my previous (and longer) flight from LAX to Tokyo Haneda. Flights for this exact route on JAL will sell for ~$6k at retail prices. Call it $3k in one-way value, which nets me 4.2 cents per point on this redemption. Not that CPP is a super valuable metric for aspirational bookings like this one, but still feels good to my deal-hunter brain.

Ground Experience at Haneda (HND)

I arrived to Haneda via my flight from LAX, and spent most of my time in the JAL Business Class Lounge. This lounge is decent but nothing special. They have cool rice-dispensing machines and really good Japanese curry, though. This lounge really falls short for long layovers because there’s no comfortable seating where you can properly lie down (unlike, for example, the Air France Business Class Lounge at CDG, among others).

I spent ~7 hours in this lounge, which was more than enough. Around midnight, I left the lounge to head over to my boarding gate for my flight to Bangkok, which was around a ~5 minute walk away.

Boarding & Seat Tour

Boarding started just 20 minutes before departure. It’s insane how much faster Asian airlines can board aircraft vs. American carriers. Business class passengers board with group 2. Boarding group 1 is for top tier OneWorld / JAL elites. There is no first class onboard this aircraft.

Today, I was sitting in seat 12A in the very back of the business class cabin. JAL has multiple 787 variants offering both the Sky Suite I (Apex product) and also the Sky Suite III. I was onboard their premium-heavy 787-9 Sky Suite III configuration. This aircraft features just 203 seats:

52x Business class seats (Sky Suite III Product) in a 1-2-1 configuration

35x Premium economy seats based on Safran Airgo FX in a 2-3-2 configuration

116x Economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration

Here’s the business class cabin:

And here was my home for the next 6 hours:

Each seat came stocked with water, blankets, pajamas, and an amenity kit.

Interestingly, this flight came with a different amenity kit vs my previous flight a few hours prior in JAL business class.

Flight Service and Food Review

After a quick taxi out, we were airborne and en route to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport. I immediately reclined the seat to lie flat and fell asleep for a solid 4 hours. This seat gets a lot of hate online for being cramped and too small, but I was surprised in how comfortable it was. I’m 6’2, and felt like this seat was actually more spacious and private compared to the older Apex suites.

I woke up with my phone alarm that I had set for four hours to make sure I was awake for the breakfast service.

Here was the food menu for today’s flight. Given it was a redeye, they were serving meals a la carte throughout the flight with a scheduled breakfast service before landing.

Breakfast was served around an hour and a half before landing. I opted for the Japanese breakfast (of course):

And last but not least, a quick bathroom check. Bathrooms were standard and clean.

Before long, we were descending into a warm and hazy Bangkok.

Conclusion & On to Singapore

Overall, this was a great flight. At this point, I was completely exhausted after 24+ hours of continuous travel. The seat ended up being super comfortable and I got 4 hours of real sleep. The breakfast was also great, and service impeccable (as to be expected on JAL). Next stop: one more flight, this time on Singapore Airlines for my second time in Singapore this year.