Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced that it will commence flying its new Airbus A350-1000 flagship aircraft on the Tokyo (Haneda) – New York (JFK) route from 24 January.
Initially, both the A350-1000 and the Boeing 777-300ER it is replacing will serve the JL5/JL6 Haneda-JFK route but once JAL receives a second A350-1000, by March, the route will switch to A350-1000 operations only.
Going forward, JAL says that when its third A350-1000 joins the fleet, the carrier will also expand A350-1000 to the Haneda-Dallas route.
JAL has 13 A350-1000s on order.
The four-class aircraft will offer a total of six first class suites, down from eight on the 777-300ERs.
Business class will be configured with 54 suites (slightly up from the 49 on the airline’s 777-300ERs) in a staggered 1-2-1 layout, with features including a sliding privacy door.
Premium economy will see a 2-4-2 configuration, with a total of 24 seats, down from 40 premium economy seats on the 777-300ER fleet.
JAL says that the A350-1000 will enable a 15-25 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the aircraft it is replacing.
Additionally, JAL plans to replace 1 per cent of fuel uplift on the A350-1000 with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) on Japan-bound flights to further reduce emissions and reduce its environmental footprint.
