Japan Airlines

Not impressed with Japan Airlines Premium Economy seat. Looks fancy with hard shell and forward slide. Fancy concepts don't translate to comfort in real life. Couldn't find a comfortable position. Not much slide to speak of. Despite sleeping pills, couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.

SFO-HND. My mom and I both had aisle seats in row 51. She is 5'2" and I am 5'9". The seat was extremely hard and uncomfortable. Additionally, the seat pockets barely open up, so it's hard to store anything other than paper, such as a water bottle, even the tiny ones they provide pre-flight! Leg room was quite decent and there was a footrest, somewhat making up for the rock hard seat.

HIJ-HND on JL 1612 on Y class. Unable to upgrade to J class as flight is near 100% full. Most passengers were working Japanese males probably on their way home to Tokyo. 2 rounds of drinks and inflight sales were made. Seat recline as good as GA 777-300ER. Were shown Japanese news and a clip of "Toy Story". The crew were pleasant and customer orientated. The toilets had paper cranes which symbolises the late Sadako Sasaki through the story of a thousand orgaimi cranes a symbol of innocent victims of war.

NRT-CTS - very comfortable seat with good recline. It was advertised seat pitch of 38". Had a good nap on both sectors. Only overhead tv available for the short sector of 1.5 hrs. Upgrade to J class for 1000 yen is available upon check in. Good value for money.

Great newish Premium Economy seats on JAL's 777 international fleet feel like a US carrier's Business Class seats on 737/Airbus 320s! Great bigh res screen with very responsive quality content on tap. Food and drink was better than average and service was of high quality overall. For the LAX to NRT run in the future it's going to JAL until AA upgrades its worn out Asian fleet.

Go on the economy upper class deck seat (where possible) as it better and more comfortable than the lower deck economy class seats. You also get an added storage bin.

Y class Haneda to Okinawa. Seat felt cramped seat pitch about 30". Pillows were found on each seat. Blankets (not individually wrapped) were given on request.

For an Economy Class Seat on a long-haul route (I was on a flight from Tokyo Narita-Vancouver) this was what I expected. Each seat had a personal television a fair amount of recline and a movable armrest. However unlike other seats I've seen the seat did not have a footrest. Also though I'm on the small side I still found it slightly difficult getting into the aisle.

The upper deck seating on the emergency exit row are highly desirable and usually only for their Global Club members. I was flying with a member so I could get it. They did block the middle seat and we had the aisle and window and the legroom is outrageously good. The problem is the width of the seat. It is probably 15" when you account for the IFE controller digging into your thigh the entire flight. Flew to the US in this same seat arrangement a few years back and it was equally miserable. Unless you are a typical Japanese size (small) this seat is horribly narrow. Don't know about legroom in the normal seats but it must be equally as bad.

JAL's new premium economy on the JFK route is worth the extra money. Provided a very large person like myself with adequate comfort without having to shell out over $6000 for business class. The recline of the sliding shell seats is odd. Sort of like slumping rather than reclining but a lot better than regular economy.