TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
Right now, Airlines are making alterations to their schedules on a daily basis as they attempt to adapt to the ever-changing entry rules that various counties have been introducing. Recent restrictions introduced by the likes of the UK, Vietnam, and Thailand have seen numerous flights to those countries cut from the schedules so it’s nice to be able to report that JAL will be increasing services to the US from September.
Under normal conditions, JAL usually operates multiple services to the following eight US cities:
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas Fort Worth
- Los Angeles
- New York
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Seattle
In August 2020, however, neither San Diego nor Seattle are getting service from JAL and most of the remaining six destinations are seeing no more than two JAL flights/week.
If you’re a JAL fan residing in the San Diego or the Seattle areas I don’t have any good news for you as the airline’s September 2020 schedule continues to show it concentrating solely on the six US cities it served in August. If you live in or around any of the other cities I’ve mentioned the news is better as JAL is increasing frequencies to all six.
Boston
As things stand, JAL serves Boston just 2x/week but, by the end of September, the airline will be offering 3 weekly services to Boston out of Tokyo Narita.
JL8 NRT 18:00 – 17:50 BOS (Tue, Wed & Sat)
JL7 BOS 17:45 – 20:40 NRT+1 day (Wed, Thu & Sun)
All flights on this route are currently scheduled to be operated by JAL’s 787-9 aircraft and, assuming the seat maps on ExpertFlyer are accurate, these are aircraft that still have JAL’s older Business Class cabin with a 2-2-2 seating configuration.
Chicago
Chicago gets the most JAL service out of any US city right now with 3 weekly flights from Tokyo Haneda but, by the end of September, this will have been increased to 4 weekly flights on the following schedule:
JL10 HND 11:45 – 09:30 ORD (Mon, Tue, Thu & Sat)
JL9 ORD 12:25 – 15:35 HND+1 day (Mon, Wed, Thu & Sat)
All the currently scheduled flights are set to be operated by JAL’s 777-300ER aircraft which offer 8 First Class seats and 49 Business Class seats. The key good news with this aircraft is to be found in Premium Economy and Economy Class aircraft where passengers get a fantastic amount of room (relatively speaking). The Premium Economy seats offer 42″ of seat pitch (at least 4″ more than a lot of other Premium Economy cabins) and the Economy Class seats (called “Sky Wider” seats) match the width of the Premium Economy seats (19″) and offer an incredible 34″ of pitch.
Dallas Fort Worth
Right now, JAL operates just 2 weekly flights between Tokyo and Dallas Fort Worth (that’s an incredibly low number of flights considering DFW is a oneworld fortress hub) but that is set to double to 4 weekly flights by the end of September. Here’s the September schedule as it currently stands:
JL12 HND 10:55 – 08:25 DFW (Mon, Tue, Thu & Sat)
JL11 DFW 10:55 – 14:20+1 day HND (Mon, Wed, Thu & Sat)
Just as with the Boston route, the flights between Haneda and Dallas Fort Worth are currently scheduled to be operated by JAL’s 787-9 aircraft and, assuming the seat maps on ExpertFlyer are accurate, these are aircraft that still have JAL’s older Business Class cabin with a 2-2-2 seating configuration.
Los Angeles
Just as with most of JAL’s current US destinations, Los Angeles has only been seeing 2 weekly flights from JAL during August but, as of September, the schedule gets a serious boost. The August flights are being served from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and they remain in place for September, but what’s changing is that JAL is bringing back its service between Narita and Los Angeles and with 3 weekly flights on this route, LAX is set to receive 5 weekly JAL flights from next month).
Here’s the September schedule as it stands:
JL16 HND 17:00 – 11:15 LAX (Mon & Thu) 787-9
JL62 NRT 17:15 – 11:35 LAX (Tue, Wed & Sat) 77W
JL61 LAX 13:30 – 16:40+1 day NRT (Wed, Thu & Sat)
JL15 LAX 14:10 – 17:20+1 day HND (Tue & Fri)
JAL is operating its Haneda service using Boeing 787-9 aircraft the same cabin layout as the aircraft being operated to Dallas Fort Worth and Boston, so it’s the Narita route (which is operated by JAL’s 777-300ERs) that offers the best seats across all cabins.
New York (JFK)
During August, New York has been getting a 2x/week service from JAL operating between Haneda and JFK. This route will see another frequency added from September (taking the total number of weekly flights to 3) leaving the currently published schedule looking like this:
JL6 HND 11:00 – 10:55 JFK (Mon, Thu & Sat)
JL5 JFK 13:15 – 16:35+1 day HND (Mon, Wed & Sat)
All flights on this route are currently scheduled to be operated by JAL’s 787-9 aircraft and unless we see any aircraft swaps between now and September, these will be aircraft that still have JAL’s older Business Class cabin with a 2-2-2 seating configuration.
San Francisco
San Francisco may only be currently getting a twice-weekly service from JAL but September will see that service double to 4 flights per week. All of JAL’s flights to San Francisco currently operate out of Tokyo Narita Airport and that is set to continue into September.
JL58 NRT 18:05 – 11:50 SFO (Mon, Tue, Wed & Sat)
JL57 SFO 13:50 – 16:45+1 day NRT (Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat & Sun)
Until all the other US cities that are getting 787-9 service from JAL, the Dreamliners operating to/from San Francisco offer the airlines newer Business Class seating with all-aisle-access 1-2-1 seating.
Bottom Line
In the month of August JAL is offering just 13 flights per week between Tokyo and six US cities. In September the number of US cities that JAL serves will remain at six but the number of weekly flights on offer will increase to 23.
