I’ve always been curious as to why JL flys NRT-BOS & JFK as evening departures which they then overnight to fly back the following day. Considering JL’s NRT-ORD/DFW/SEA/SAN/LAX all return the same day - why are JFK & BOS outliers? Seems like a very inefficient use of 77W & 789. Why not just make them morning NRT departures and keep the same late morning (JFK) and early afternoon (BOS) returns?

Plenty of examples of what looks like inefficient utilisation out there but there must be a reason for it, they must know what they’re doing. Presumably in this case it’s to pick up connecting traffic into the Narita hub.

Answer is easy. To cater the transit passengers from South East Asia.

One example would be KHH. Flight arrives in NRT around 2:30pm and people travelling onward to destinations in US.

This has been quite a good business for JAL.

a19901213 wrote:

Answer is easy. To cater the transit passengers from South East Asia.

One example would be KHH. Flight arrives in NRT around 2:30pm and people travelling onward to destinations in US.

This has been quite a good business for JAL.

I understand wanting to cater to SE Asia. But if that’s the case then why do ORD & DFW leave in the morning? Wouldn’t they want to capture the same SE Asia traffic?

clrd4t8koff wrote:

a19901213 wrote:

Answer is easy. To cater the transit passengers from South East Asia.

One example would be KHH. Flight arrives in NRT around 2:30pm and people travelling onward to destinations in US.

This has been quite a good business for JAL.

I understand wanting to cater to SE Asia. But if that’s the case then why do ORD & DFW leave in the morning? Wouldn’t they want to capture the same SE Asia traffic?

AA have an evening departure from NRT to both DFW and ORD (on the days it operates). With a metal neutral neutral JV JAL can put passengers on AA metal and optimise their own schedule, which isn't possible to JFK and BOS

RyanairGuru wrote:

clrd4t8koff wrote:

a19901213 wrote:

Answer is easy. To cater the transit passengers from South East Asia.

One example would be KHH. Flight arrives in NRT around 2:30pm and people travelling onward to destinations in US.

This has been quite a good business for JAL.

I understand wanting to cater to SE Asia. But if that’s the case then why do ORD & DFW leave in the morning? Wouldn’t they want to capture the same SE Asia traffic?

AA have an evening departure from NRT to both DFW and ORD (on the days it operates). With a metal neutral neutral JV JAL can put passengers on AA metal and optimise their own schedule, which isn't possible to JFK and BOS

Ah, makes sense. Admittedly I know JL knows better than I do about what’s best for their aircrafts utilization. But man - those planes sit for almost 24-hours, BOS especially.

As an aside, we were on JA864J going over last Friday and the schedule showed the same plane would be used coming home yesterday after (again) coming in from Boston. But for some reason that plane ended up going to Sydney I think. We ended up on 865 yesterday, which had just come into NRT from FRA.

I just took JAL 7 Friday the 27th and came home on 8 last night. Both flights filled to the brim. I wonder whether a 77W would be too much? In any event, I’ve also wondered about the wisdom of parking that 787-9 in Boston for what amounts so almost 20 hours. On the plus side, the outbound 7 is nearly always on time because they’ve had many hours to service and cater the plane.

JAL's JFK operations are twice daily from each Haneda and Narita, the HND flight is a late morning departure turning in about 3 hours. The NRT flight is the early evening flights overnighting at JFK, it then goes to HND and the HND goes to NRT.

There is no reason for JL to spend close to 20 hours on the ground at BOS.
Just look at KE. They arrive early and depart early. And have a similar length flight.

Let's also remember that A LOT of JL (and NH) aircraft only do a few flights a day, and rest up overnight at HND/NRT as well. Earlier this year one of JL's B777-200ER only operated HND-SHA-HND for weeks on end, meaning it was on HND ground 16:45-09:20. JL and NH are more focused on the customer flows and markets that work best for them rather than increasing utilisation. On that note NH operates JFK with a HND-JFK-NRT and vv rotation.

Given the metal neutral AA/JL JV wouldn’t the route be better done by an AA 777 or 787 as the JAL plane parks for 19 hours.... The route turns around in 2 hours at Tokyo.

This is looking at it from an aircraft rotation point of view?

Even AA could do a trans con in the spare time?

Dieuwer wrote:

There is no reason for JL to spend close to 20 hours on the ground at BOS.
Just look at KE. They arrive early and depart early. And have a similar length flight.

JAL does what is good for JAL, apart from this JFK 77W, all their other US flights turn around in a few hours. Planes spending 12 to 24 hours at Foreign airports happen all the time. AT LAX two Virgin Australia 77W spend 18 hours daily, the same with two Qantas A380, QF even has a hangar at LAX.

IN Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo planes from the USA spend all day their, its looks like a US airline parking lot, AA even has hangars at both EZE and GRU.

AT Johannesburg the same for the European airlines, many BA and Virgin planes spend all day there.

All the daytime JFK and ORD to LHR flights spend the night in the UK and fly out first thing in the morning.

What to you is "irregular" flight operations is actually quite normal.

jfk777 wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

There is no reason for JL to spend close to 20 hours on the ground at BOS.
Just look at KE. They arrive early and depart early. And have a similar length flight.

JAL does what is good for JAL, apart from this JFK 77W, all their other US flights turn around in a few hours. Planes spending 12 to 24 hours at Foreign airports happen all the time. AT LAX two Virgin Australia 77W spend 18 hours daily, the same with two Qantas A380, QF even has a hangar at LAX.

IN Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo planes from the USA spend all day their, its looks like a US airline parking lot, AA even has hangars at both EZE and GRU.

AT Johannesburg the same for the European airlines, many BA and Virgin planes spend all day there.

All the daytime JFK and ORD to LHR flights spend the night in the UK and fly out first thing in the morning.

What to you is "irregular" flight operations is actually quite normal.

I did not write "irregular" anywhere in my post.
Care to comment on KE vs. JL?

Dieuwer wrote:

jfk777 wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

There is no reason for JL to spend close to 20 hours on the ground at BOS.
Just look at KE. They arrive early and depart early. And have a similar length flight.

JAL does what is good for JAL, apart from this JFK 77W, all their other US flights turn around in a few hours. Planes spending 12 to 24 hours at Foreign airports happen all the time. AT LAX two Virgin Australia 77W spend 18 hours daily, the same with two Qantas A380, QF even has a hangar at LAX.

IN Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo planes from the USA spend all day their, its looks like a US airline parking lot, AA even has hangars at both EZE and GRU.

AT Johannesburg the same for the European airlines, many BA and Virgin planes spend all day there.

All the daytime JFK and ORD to LHR flights spend the night in the UK and fly out first thing in the morning.

What to you is "irregular" flight operations is actually quite normal.

I did not write "irregular" anywhere in my post.
Care to comment on KE vs. JL?

Because it doesn't matter about sitting on the ground in Boston for 19 hours. It's about what works best for the passenger schedule on both ends - Boston and Tokyo.

Not really a hard concept to figure out with capable thought.

Dieuwer wrote:

jfk777 wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

There is no reason for JL to spend close to 20 hours on the ground at BOS.
Just look at KE. They arrive early and depart early. And have a similar length flight.

JAL does what is good for JAL, apart from this JFK 77W, all their other US flights turn around in a few hours. Planes spending 12 to 24 hours at Foreign airports happen all the time. AT LAX two Virgin Australia 77W spend 18 hours daily, the same with two Qantas A380, QF even has a hangar at LAX.

IN Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo planes from the USA spend all day their, its looks like a US airline parking lot, AA even has hangars at both EZE and GRU.

AT Johannesburg the same for the European airlines, many BA and Virgin planes spend all day there.

All the daytime JFK and ORD to LHR flights spend the night in the UK and fly out first thing in the morning.

What to you is "irregular" flight operations is actually quite normal.

I did not write "irregular" anywhere in my post.
Care to comment on KE vs. JL?

The whole premise of your post is "irregular."

Midnight departures are common to Asia but not to Japan, as far as Korean they fly twice daily to JFK and their late flights departs very late since Icheon is open to early morning arrivals.

Fuling wrote:

Let's also remember that A LOT of JL (and NH) aircraft only do a few flights a day, and rest up overnight at HND/NRT as well. Earlier this year one of JL's B777-200ER only operated HND-SHA-HND for weeks on end, meaning it was on HND ground 16:45-09:20. JL and NH are more focused on the customer flows and markets that work best for them rather than increasing utilisation. On that note NH operates JFK with a HND-JFK-NRT and vv rotation.

I'm surprised that JL isn't following NH's rotation HND-JFK-NRT. Previously JL operated 77W from HND and 789 from NRT so they couldn't rotate, but now it's 2x daily 77W from TYO. Unless JL likes to keep their aircraft based in a single airport.

And JL HND long-haul operation isn't as robust as NH, the only 77W long-haul flights are HND-JFK/SFO/LHR/CDG.

Will NRT-ORD for JL become an evening departure after AA is ending ORD-NRT in 2020?

The poster's question is what makes BOS and JFK different from the rest of the markets it operated in, not why would an airline park a plane for 20hrs.

notconcerned wrote:

Fuling wrote:

Let's also remember that A LOT of JL (and NH) aircraft only do a few flights a day, and rest up overnight at HND/NRT as well. Earlier this year one of JL's B777-200ER only operated HND-SHA-HND for weeks on end, meaning it was on HND ground 16:45-09:20. JL and NH are more focused on the customer flows and markets that work best for them rather than increasing utilisation. On that note NH operates JFK with a HND-JFK-NRT and vv rotation.

I'm surprised that JL isn't following NH's rotation HND-JFK-NRT. Previously JL operated 77W from HND and 789 from NRT so they couldn't rotate, but now it's 2x daily 77W from TYO. Unless JL likes to keep their aircraft based in a single airport.

And JL HND long-haul operation isn't as robust as NH, the only 77W long-haul flights are HND-JFK/SFO/LHR/CDG.

JAL's 77W do rotate the Haneda flights go back to Narita, as an early afternoon departure. The NRT flight arrives late in the day spends the night and goes to HND as late morning flight.

RTNOBLE wrote:

The poster's question is what makes BOS and JFK different from the rest of the markets it operated in, not why would an airline park a plane for 20hrs.

Please reread the OP first before making comments. He's probably just one stone away from saying this and he did mention this later on down the thread.

Michael

jfk777 wrote:

notconcerned wrote:

Fuling wrote:

Let's also remember that A LOT of JL (and NH) aircraft only do a few flights a day, and rest up overnight at HND/NRT as well. Earlier this year one of JL's B777-200ER only operated HND-SHA-HND for weeks on end, meaning it was on HND ground 16:45-09:20. JL and NH are more focused on the customer flows and markets that work best for them rather than increasing utilisation. On that note NH operates JFK with a HND-JFK-NRT and vv rotation.

I'm surprised that JL isn't following NH's rotation HND-JFK-NRT. Previously JL operated 77W from HND and 789 from NRT so they couldn't rotate, but now it's 2x daily 77W from TYO. Unless JL likes to keep their aircraft based in a single airport.

And JL HND long-haul operation isn't as robust as NH, the only 77W long-haul flights are HND-JFK/SFO/LHR/CDG.

JAL's 77W do rotate the Haneda flights go back to Narita, as an early afternoon departure. The NRT flight arrives late in the day spends the night and goes to HND as late morning flight.

I can see how they could do that, but the currently airborne JL3 and JL5 are operating return sectors to their original airports without switching at JFK. JA735J on NRT-JFK(overnight)JFK-NRT, and JA739J on HND-JFK(3.5 hours)JFK-HND.

I get why JL would use a B77W on NRT-JFK (JL4/3) (need for first-class), but why not move the return to midnight for connections at NRT in the morning? (It used to be a B788, but then it got upgauged back to B77W except for two-off B789s, as the B789 would be under 180 seats if there was first class in their 2-4-2 Dreamliner configuration in Y.)

aemoreira1981 wrote:

I get why JL would use a B77W on NRT-JFK (JL4/3) (need for first-class), but why not move the return to midnight for connections at NRT in the morning? (It used to be a B788, but then it got upgauged back to B77W except for two-off B789s, as the B789 would be under 180 seats if there was first class in their 2-4-2 Dreamliner configuration in Y.)

NRT had an 11pm curfew until recently. No midnight flights were allowed.

If I had to guess, I would say connections was the reason. Not connections in NRT, but connections in the US.

Flights between NRT and cities like DFW, LAX, and ORD probably rely somewhat on AA feed, so those flights might be better timed to receive that. An evening US departure allows for AA to funnel in Japan-bound pax to JL's flights. I would imagine that in BOS and JFK, there is far less connecting traffic simply due to geographic location. I don't have the numbers but I would assume most, if not all, of JL's pax originate in BOS or JFK on those two routes. Since they aren't getting any feed on the US side, they may be more conscious about connections on the Japan side, and thus are focused on timing these flights to align with their own departure banks from NRT, as opposed to AA ones stateside.