ANA Introducing New First Class Suites With Doors

by Gary Leff

Star Alliance carrier ANA is introducing Airbus A380 service between Tokyo and Honolulu. They didn’t really want A380s, but it’s how they got Airbus’ support as a creditor to take over bankrupt Skymark.

ANA’s first A380 is currently in Hamburg, Germany. It completed final assembly in August. Taking these planes got ANA more slots at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

This new Hawaii service will launch May 24 and they plan to cram in 520 seats which is the second densest A380 configuration, which makes sense for a purely leisure route. There will be:

  • 8 first class
  • 56 business class
  • 73 premium economy
  • 383 economy

ANA is going to offer a lounge in Honolulu with direct boarding onto the aircraft.

We’ve now learned more about the inflight product as well.

  • Business class seats in the center of each row share an armrest “to better facilitate conversation between two passengers.” (cough)

  • “[S]ome economy class seats can be joined to create a lie flat bed.”

Most importantly from my perspective is that it appears ANA will offer a new first class with doors. (Additional photo here.)

There’s a handle on these suite doors which would appear to slide and close. In contrast, ANA’s current first class seat is semi-enclosed but lacks doors for privacy.

I find the real highlight of ANA to be exceptional service, as well as their inflight food. Whether in business or first class I recommend the ramen.

If award availability opens for these flights you should be able to redeem 70,000 Virgin Atlantic miles roundtrip for business class or 90,000 for first. And of course Virgin is a transfer partner of American Express, Chase, and Citibank. United (Chase transfer partner) and Aeroplan (American Express) as well as ANA itself (American Express) can be used as well.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. There are going to be lots of honeymooners on these flights who may actually want to hold hands. I’d normally agree with your cough, but not in this case.

  2. Looks nice in 1st. I’m flying ANA 1st for the 1st Time in January (IAD-NRT) and looking forward to enjoying the service. But feeling like the current 1st Suite blocks windows:-(

    ANA only offers RT awards but I don’t like to fly over and back. I want to keep going so I’ve built 2 RTW trips I fly to Tokyo on January 14, but fly back May 14 🙂

    I used Virgin miles transferred from AmEx at a bonus so only 94K MR for 120k VA Miles and RT in 1st. Cheaper than ANA miles redemption:-)

  3. @brteacher, not confident your expectation for hand holding aligns well with Japanese sentiment about PDA, but it’s a sweet thought…

  4. I just can’t believe how few miles it will take to try this out! United from mainland US to Hawaii in an old and antiquated lay flat seat is around 95,000 miles ONE WAY. Versus 90,000 round trip from Tokyo in first class, with a door!? Jeez United.

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