All Nippon Airways A380 First Class: The Flying Honu, At Last!

Were you able to sleep at all? Getting on a plane at 9pm and getting off at 9am makes for two very long days!

After crossing the international date line, it’s practically a single super long day!

Looks great. Real shame that instead of having an 8pm and a 9pm departure from Tokyo, they don't operate one morning flight. Might be nice to leave Tokyo at say ~10am and get to HNL right in time to go to bed.

You have to take into account on the way back, you'd probably arrive in Narita dead at night and the airport would be closed because of curfew. And while you can park the aircraft for the night, it wouldn't be worth the expense especially for an A380.

Always wondered why they never send these to LHR, or other key destinations in the US.

If you want the flights to be much longer eastbound, you can always fly during the summer when tailwinds aren't as strong. On the return of course, winter would be ideal 😉

The REVIEW I'VE TRULY BEEN DYING TO SEE!!!!!

I've seen it flying over Waikiki so many times

Hi Ben,
Question for you. If you are to guess how many people you think have completed the feat of flying every A380 F product ever available? And what would it be if you add the Residence as well.
Curious…

Yes, it would have to be a daytime return. Think of UA's EWR-LHR daytime flight, turning back to EWR in the morning.

Flew on a 777 route within a couple days of you and loved it (especially the new spring menu). A couple questions:
1. Did the crew keep every light on the plane max brightness during the meal? It felt like a football stadium in there and made it hard to enjoy the movie while eating.
2. What are the differences between the A380 & 777 seat? It appears the screen may be ever so slightly smaller?
3. What did you think of the mattress pad? I was surprised that it felt insubstantial, but ultimately didn't prevent me from getting a great night's sleep.
4. More observation than question: I'd have a hard time picking between ANA & JAL F in the future considering ANA has individual air nozzles on the 777.

I also wonder about that considering how much smaller ANA's F footprint is compared to JAL, despite having the capacity. They could at least rotate it through medium-haul destinations in Asia (Singapore & HKG come to mind) in between Hawaii.

One could wish they'd figure out a way to get a Fifth Freedom flight HNL to LAX to fill that gap. Would become the most popular route in the US.

My guess is because these planes are confined to NRT. If they want to target major markets with the capacity of an A380, they'd probably rather do it via HND.

That wouldn't be fifth freedom, but rather seventh freedom and cabotage.

Hey Ben - Any tips for booking ANA business/first class with Virgin miles these days? Did you book this flight close-in?

Man, it feels so nice to see an ANA review after so long, with JAL having stolen so much of the thunder in 2024 with its A350-1000. What’s next? The SQ 737 MAX? Or the AI A350? Or Swiss?

what is the difference in hard product with the A380 vs B777. they look similar but ben seems to hint at some differences?

Even during COVID when ANA could practically shit money by flying an A380 to China every week and charge every economy seat $1800 one way they didn't do it.
doubt they'd change it now. Plus long haul demand in NRT is just way lower than HND. You can tell from seatmap, and award availability.

Some minor touches here and there, but the major difference would be the IFE as they both use 2 separate vendors; screen size on the 777 would be 43" in 4K whereas the A380 has a 32" in HD.

In addition to the sub-par aircraft utilization, one of those A380's has been parked in Xiamen for nearly 2 months. I totally agree with your point about maybe scheduling them on other routes, I can't imagine there's compelling reason to have more than 1 A380 flight to HNL a day (if even that), and that can be done with one frame. If you could capture connecting traffic from North America to Asia by sending some planes to, say, LAX and Bangkok they could probably overcome some of the issues with the weak currency, and Los Angeles and Thailand are both big markets for Japanese travelers anyway.

Seems like Korean Air execs need to spend some time in NH and JL first class as a part of planning their own first class product redesign.

Ben The Residence back in 2017 from Abu Dhabi to Sydney. Google should be able to find it for you.

Did daytime other way in biz. Food was average. Direct boarding from lounge to plane was cool. Connected to ITM also on ANA. Also scored with VA transfer bonus.

If anyone is interested, Sam Chui does have a "review" of Lufthansa's new first class.

The critique didn't impress. No details of the food, wines or drinks on offer, except some photos of the Japanese fare. Was lounge access included? No mention of that. Re privacy, didn't look very private and nothing compared to other first class suites on the same A380

Congrats! I've wanted to do this, but the short flight deterred me from wanting to head to HNL for it. Agree it's a money furnace.

Got to fly it exactly one time, when we found 2 F seats out of HNL at a reasonable redemption on UA. Have never found anything reasonable since then. They have their own purpose-built lounge in HNL, with a separate F section.

Yes! As size matters to some people; reading a review from someone who has a similar body mass adds a dimension to a review which is most important to one.
Our long legs and equally proportioned feet, become critical factors to those looking for comfort from a seat/bed. These factors can be easily overlooked by reviewers who are less vertically challenged.
Not wishing to take anything away from Ben, however, Sam Chui always adds that important aspect to his reviews.

Wait 8 weeks for the full review 🙂

Interesting to see, thanks.

I'd really want to know why ANA doesn't fly these beauties to say LHR or LAX. Yes, HND doesn't allow the A380 but still allows the B747-8i from LH.

Very cool.