Review: ANA First Class Airbus A380 (NRT-HNL)

I don't get why they don't reallocate these to West Coast or other high demand routes.

They only have 3 frames. And they also made a significant investment in HNL from the taxiways and tarmac down to the jet bridges.

Just as an aside, they never intended to order the A380s. It was part of a restructuring deal with Skymark to gain access to their slots.

You're right, having just 3 A380s wouldn't stop ANA from making them LAX-only. ANA went to great lengths to take these A380s ordered by Skymark, as a way to prevent Delta from effectively taking over Skymark. It would've been best to put them on a route that competes with A380 operators like EK and EY.

What stopped them you can't use A380s in high-yield, business-centric HND, they have to be based in NRT which is kind of a B-list lower-yield airport for both JAL and ANA. That's why ANA focused on Hawaii expansion, they already see NRT as leisure-focused overall.

To prevent the next plane getting caught in the A380's wake turbulence, you have to keep the plane behind separated by 6nm, which is twice of the 3nm required behind a 777. This would cause an issue at an airport as busy as HND. And even if this hadn't been an issue, HND Runway D has a 400-ton weight limit. A380s can use it if empty, but not when loaded.

Well, ANA A380s' premium cabin capacity is lower than that of ANA B77Ws, and has a very high economy class capacity. With this and NRT being more of a 'low-cost' hub in these days, I do think ANA flying A380 to, say LAX, wouldn't be too bad to fill the seat and achieve some economies of demand for that flight.

For now though, ANA's A380s wouldn't be filling all of the seats on any routes. With depreciating yen and other surrounding situations, even the inbound demand to Hawaii from Japan seems to have quite contracted (even during the recent Golden Week in Japan, the outbound tourism in Japan seems quite small) that A380s flying between NRT and HNL have not so small number of empty seats.

@ben, you mentioned this the other day, and I do think it’s a fault of reviewers world wide. You have a few criticisms, including the basic lounge, poor bedding, no air nozzles etc but still give 5/5 stars. Slowly, perhaps you should rate out of ten and an amazing airline journey gets 8.5 or 9/10 reserving a 9.5 or 10 for a once in every few years experience.

If nearly every hotel or airline is 4.5 or 5 out of 5 cheapens the experience.

I felt the same reviewing uber. Feel bad so give everyone 5 stars but the really amazing drivers don’t get recognized because of this system.

Just a suggestion - You mention a few times that this is such a short flight, but you don’t mention the actual duration until the final words of the review. I kept scrolling back up to see if I missed it. Maybe mention that detail earlier on for those of us who aren’t familiar with the route.

@ James -- I always try to mention it early on, since it's an important detail. If you look carefully, you'll see the flight time mentioned in the first sentence of the review. 🙂

@ Mick -- I hear you, and if this plane were flying other routes, I'd probably give it a 4.5. But I upped the score here a bit because this is the only real international first class product to and from Honolulu, and these planes specifically only operate this route. For an aircraft designed specifically for a single leisure route, I'd say that's pretty cool.

I did biz in the other direction. Better timing and direct boarding from the lounge at HNL, but no availability in first. Biz seat was a bit tight, although a joy to fly overall, even though lowly biz can’t keep the pajamas.

Wow, both Hibiki 17 and Hibiki 21, didn't realize ANA was still serving those in F. As I recall the 17 year had been discontinued, and they weren't serving it in J when I flew the 777 back in 2022.

James - dont feel too bad. I missed the first sentence too, and had the same reaction - why did Ben wait until the last sentence.

Sorry, guess we both just gazed over the first sentence.

I've said this before but I still feel like they could better utilize their A380s on west coast flights, even out of NRT. I'd imagine a once-daily A380 to HNL is more than sufficient (maybe still even then too much) and they could operate that with one frame. Hell, one of their A380's has been parked in Xiamen for the better part of two months now. California is a huge market for outbound Japanese travelers, although I am aware that demand is stifled right now because of the weak yen. Still, if they sent another A380 to, say, Bangkok or Singapore they could probably capture a good chunk of connecting traffic and I'm sure people would be thrilled to have that option.

I'm curious: did they keep the cabin lighting at full brightness for your entire meal? When I flew both JAL & ANA First I felt like I was in a football stadium, and I've never been light sensitive.

I'm confused because it does seem that you do take the context and regionality into the bigger picture of your reviews then?

It seems to me that while the NRT Suite Lounge isn't the best in the world, it serves as one of the better lounges in the entire region of Asia still. And when comparing it head to head against the JAL First Class Lounge in NRT, it holds up. And because of the split Tokyo airport situation, NRT serves very different types of traffic like this Flying Honu route.

I just get confused because the standards largely don't seem very consistent. Because as you said, this is largely the best product you can fly on Tokyo to Hawaii.

Did you try to open the "secret" door behind the bench in the toilet?

While you can use your phones in Customs and Immigration, you absolutely should not. CBP can look at the data on everyone's phones but they still need a warrant to make you enter your password. They can however, make you use biometrics to open it, so if your phone is on, they can get your data but if it is off, they cannot.

I'm in HNL and I too regularly see the Flying Honus taking off and landing. (Never flown on one.) My theory is that ANA is making up for the lack of passengers by using them as cargo haulers. Actually I think it's mostly Japanese food. JFC just built a whole new refrigerated warehouse right by HNL. Of course you don't have the same variety as in Japan, but you can get pretty high quality fresh and packaged food here, both for home consumption and at restaurants. And the big Asian population here, as well as visitors, will buy it. I myself am grateful that I can choose from 10+ Japanese rice varieties, pickles, wagyu, fish, shoyu, ice cream, etc. etc. I imagine LA or NYC might have the same variety and quality, but I don't think so. Also, Hawaii exports a fair amount of tuna to Japan. So if my theory is correct, long live the Flying Honus.

Honu is one of the bright spots for HNL ... very quiet and service is great!

The irony is that the A380 has a smaller cargo capacity than the 77W. I am not saying you are incorrect, but it's something a lot of folks forget.

I live in HNL and regularly fly one of the ANA Turtles out on my way to Bangkok. ANA has become my favorite airline, even though I do not fly 1st class the food is amazing and the loungs in Nartia and Haneda is fantastic. I regularly have the row to myself. Once I was able to fly the Pikachu ANA plane out of HNL but don't know what happened to that plane.

Last A380 for you to fly? Did you forget about Global!?!

I think ANA manages to make up for it in a few ways like the SkyCouchii product since there's so much economy capacity, they get a decent amount of ancillaries from people buying up a row.

I doubt it's some kind of money printer the same way JFK/LHR to HND are, but I think that definitely helps stem the bleeding.

Also I think Hawaii is making more of a resurgence culturally speaking. I've been seeing a sharp uptick in the amount of Japanese travel content surrounding Hawaii. Americans and Westerner post-pandemic travel recovery was way faster than a lot of Asian countries. China for example had a massive fall off in airport traffic even in 2024 despite their massive populations.

And if anything Hawaiian moving their NRT frame over to SEA probably helps a bit as well.

I'm a little worried about Hawaiian moving its wide bodies to Sea. As much as I love to fly ANA, JAL, KAL, or even Asiana, they tend to be a little more expensive than Hawaiian. Hawaiian is typically the least expensive carrier and even more so in business class.

and a special pre-departure lounge on Honolulu for these three A380s