All Nippon Airways (ANA)

I have been pleased with ANA over the years as I have flown them several times while living in Japan. It is more expensive than the others but the service had been better than the discount carriers and I had higher expectations. But recently I feel their promise of no fee change or cancellation policy is deceitful. In June I bought a one-way ticket from Hokkaido to Osaka at a time when they were urging customers to ‘buy now and don’t worry if you need to make a change’ policy during the pandemic. Ten weeks later I wanted to extend my vacation a couple days, but I was told there would be a cancellation fee or I could pay 25,000 yen to push my flight back two days. This really contradicts the promotional message from June. By contrast, other airlines (like United) offered a similar promo but clearly stated that the customer would be responsible if the fare increased for a similar flight. I will never book again using ANA.

Flew from KUL to Tokyo. From check-in to onboarding to flight service and food, excellent service. Food from KL to Tokyo could be improved.

Return flight we experience less than satisfactory service because we wanted some changes in our seats which involved asking another passenger if he was willing to switch with you. The ground crew said they would try but they didn’t. In the end when we boarded we asked the passenger himself who was more than happy to accommodate!

I found ANA to be a good airline with one major exception: I had a ticket from Nagoya to Tokyo to Seattle and I found myself staying in Tokyo longer that I had planned. I called ANA and told them that I would not be getting on the Nagoya to Tokyo flight since I was already in Tokyo, but I would still be getting on the Tokyo to Seattle flight. They said that unless I pay them 12,500 yen ($120), that I would not be allowed to get on my flight from Tokyo to Seattle. They considered that to be changing the ticket. I didn’t want to change anything. I was simply telling them that I was going to skip one flight but take the other.

This was absolutely ridiculous, but even after extensively talking to managers, they refused to budge one inch over their stance. I felt like I was being held hostage in Tokyo over 12,500 yen when me NOT getting on the Nagoya to Tokyo flight actually saved ANA money!

Best airline in Japan is JAL. Second is ANA. Though JAL staffs(pilots/co-pilots/FA) likes to move to ANA as they say, ANA has better benefits for the crews. However, from the user side, JAL has way better service. Such an example for ANA, is that the ground attendants can be swopped with a robot and no one can tell the different. It just means that they’re not trained well and everything is completely by manual. If a customer is complaining, they just go by manual, if they’re mad they just go by manual and customer satisfaction is second to nothing. JAL on the other hand is trained very well and knows how to cherish customers and of course they’ve a smile. Everything up to here is when leaving Japan to USA.
From the US to JPN, it all will depend on the staff on duty. But here also, JAL staffs are significantly better trained compared to ANA.
A friend of mine boarding together going to SIN had a bad experience and has written the complaint card. After submission in flight to the FA, a senior FA-like person and asked my friend of what’s wrong? FAs didn’t read and has just poured more oil on fire. We understood that ANA doesn’t train the crews. Its still the same after 10 years.

The flight from Tokyo Haneda to Frankfurt was a result of being transferred from a British Airways flight and aren’t I gad they did. The flight was my first experience with ANA and it was impeccable. Most probably the best flight I have ever had. Well done