In July 2023, Japan Airlines (JAL) announced plans to launch a new route to Doha. At the time, the airline hadn’t revealed the exact launch date or schedule, though that has finally changed, and the flight is now on sale.
This is a pretty major development — not only is it the carrier’s first new long haul route in years, but it’s the first time that a Japanese airline is flying nonstop to the Middle East.
In this post:
Japan Airlines launching new route to Doha
As of March 31, 2024, Japan Airlines will launch a new daily year-round service between Tokyo Haneda (HND) and Doha (DOH) using a Boeing 787-9. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
JL59 Tokyo to Doha departing 10:50PM arriving 4:40AM (+1 day)
JL50 Doha to Tokyo departing 7:15AM arriving 11:55PM
The Tokyo to Doha route covers a distance of 5,141 miles, and is blocked at 11hr50min westbound and 10hr40min eastbound.
Doha is of course the mega-hub of oneworld airline Qatar Airways. Currently Japan Airlines codeshares on Qatar Airways’ route between Doha and Tokyo, and that will continue to be the case even after Japan Airlines starts its own service. Furthermore, Qatar Airways will codeshare on Japan Airlines’ service. Qatar Airways operates twice daily flights in the market, so I’m curious if those frequencies are maintained, or if the Japan Airlines service replaces one of them.
Presumably the primary intent here is to feed Japan Airlines passengers into Qatar Airways’ network. Doha is an efficient connecting point for those traveling to destinations across the Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe, and beyond. The flight times are clearly timed to optimize connectivity in Doha rather than Tokyo, which is logical enough.
Doha’s growing oneworld partner presence
Qatar Airways really dominates Doha Hamad Airport, though it’s impressive the extent to which other oneworld airlines have started service to the airport. The airport now has flights from oneworld partners American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Malaysia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines.
It’s my understanding that Qatar has been offering some very lucrative incentives for partners to launch service to Doha, beyond the typical kinds of offers we see for airlines starting new routes (like waived landing fees, etc.). So I imagine that has contributed to the amount of growth we’ve seen from oneworld partners.
Filling planes to and from Doha is easy, given how much of the world’s population lives within a short distance of the Middle East. The challenge is filling these planes profitably, since these are often flights in fairly low yield markets, with passengers traveling very long distances.
Bottom line
Japan Airlines will launch a new daily flight between Tokyo and Doha as of March 2024 using a Boeing 787. The schedule for this route has now been published, and flights are on sale. This is Japan Airlines’ first new long haul route in years, and it’s also part of the continued growth we’ve seen from oneworld partners at Doha Airport.
What do you make of Japan Airlines launching Doha flights?
Human rights.
No wonder the other day when I was at the Al Safwa lounge, there was a QR rep bringing around a group of JAL team explaining the lounge facilities, etc. I did think of them launching, but did not already know that works were already rolling..good to know.
Qatar is pulling out of Haneda. If you make a booking you will see that JL only has 8 seats available in business class on each departure. The rest are already taken by Qatar Airways. So the setup will be the same as when Finnair took over some of the rotations on the Nordic capital cities.
Iberia is also starting Madrid - Doha the 11th of december
It's cool to see more JAL longhauls .
The Haneda arrival time is rough.
Flying eastbound is always rough.
I wonder which HUB has the most OW partners? Maybe London, Hong Kong, or Tokyo? I know DFW has many of them as well.
JFK T8 has quite a lot now - it is cool to see: AA, BA, JL, CX, RJ, QR, QF, AY, IB. AT flies from JFK T1. Not sure if the most, tough.
@AAFlyer I've always wondered if/when AS plans to move.
LHR is the top with all airlines except AS flying to it. DOH is #2 missing AS and CX.
DOH is tied for #2 with JFK. QF, AS, and CX don't serve DOH and UL, WY, and MH don't serve JFK.
DOH indirectly has CX, if you include the CX-leased planes operated by QR ;)
Arriving Haneda at 11:55PM is brutal - virtually no ground transports to Tokyo are available other than expensive taxi. JAL should run bus like Emirates to major Tokyo terminal.
Is the taxi to downtown Tokyo that expensive from Haneda?
Down town Tokyo is a wide space, and depending on whether you get a car with or without night time charge. There are fixed fares for most areas, and in most cases you will be below 10,000 yen.
Unfortunetly slot was always major issue when airline operated service to HND. International flight only granted unrestricted slot near midnight, for daylight it was pretty limited to find slot since either being taken by NH or JL for their domestic (mostly) and international flight or already taken foreign airlines. Even JL had limited slot in daylight compared to NH due their bankrupt history
For late arrivals to Haneda, I like to stay at the Royal Park Hotel Haneda. It's connected to T3 and is fairly comfortable. Only thing is that most of the places to eat in the terminal are closed by about 21:00. Maybe the Yoshinoya gyudon place might be open...
Let's get real, this is just collusion by any other name.
When Finnair and American launched flights, Qatar pulled some of their routes (PHL-DOH, HEL-DOH, etc.). I wonder if this means that QR will free up their own planes for new routes/densify existing routes?
Agreed, I mean they probably should pull back 1 frequency. Some members just like flying on Metal that they know and expect. I have flown AA, BA, & IB to Europe and I prefer AA. Even with the Flight Attendants (or lack there of) and issues with seats etc. IB was horrible and BA transfer issues and both BA/IB Intra-Europe seats made the trek uncomfortable.
There's no way you'd pick AA over QR for PHL-DOH though, would you? ;P
Of course. These are, for all practical purposes, wetleases, because QR suffers from a lack of planes. Once they expand their fleet, all (or most) these flights will revert back to QR.