Japan Airlines Reviews 124

We shall be travelling from London Heathrow to Tokyo Haneda on September 17th.

My wife and I shall be travelling with our three young infants, who are triplets.
According to the JAL website, the bag drop for this flight opens 2 hours and 35 minutes before the departure; given how much luggage we will have and how difficult it will be for us to get the boys to the departure gate in time for this flight, we spoke to your Japan Airlines UK contact department to find out whether any additional assistance could be afforded to us.

We were met by a very impolite member of staff, Linda, who informed us bluntly that JAL cannot give us any additional support. When I asked if I could speak with her supervisor she was very evasive and, after a very lengthy hold, she informed us that we'd receive a call back from the supervisor. As yet, nobody has called us back.

We were simply getting in touch as we do not want to delay the flight nor cause a nuisance for other passengers, however JAL have been dismissive and unkind to us.

We have travelled with other airlines with our three babies; all of whom have been understanding and have offered additional support to us in the past.
To be bluntly refused any assistance by JAL, and in such a rude and unkind manner, has come as quite a shock to us.

To add insult to injury, our boys will be turning one year old on the flight. We had hoped this would be a special occasion for them, however JAL's cold approach toward customer service has already made us apprehensive about the treatment we're likely to receive onboard.

on june 17th we have arrived at 6:00(flight was at 10:50) to haneda airport with my family and after 14 years living in japan it was our last day in japan. so we wanted to have a relax day. with my 4 years old daughter, 9 years old son and wife. we wanted show haneda to our children and have a delicious dinner with my family last time in haneda.our luggage right was 75 kg and we have brought 5 suitcase which is 76 kg i think. and hand baggage for inside for each member of my family. the person who received my suitcases and did the check in procedures tokk all the baggages from me and sent them to down. so we have left nothing in our hand to bring inside the airplane. you know we didnt know what is going on and firstly suprised but said anyway, it wasnt big issue for us.eventually we gave our all stuff to them. Then jsut headed to restaurant to have a dinner with my family, resposible person called me and told me almost 21 kg is over the limit and you have to pay 50 usd for each kg. Then i explained those extra ones are for inside the airplane but you took from me without confirmation and now you are asking for extra money!!!!! however we explain they didnt listened and got tooooo much rude to us and started to bully us in fron of everybody! their looking at started to become a hurting way and disgusting. I have never experienced something like that! they told us if we dont pay they will bring all the suitcase back. i accepted to bring back the suitcases because i wanted seperate the airplane inside handbaggage and the ones to go down. but they were sooo unwillingly doing it and the suitcase came back after 2 hours and now it is 8:00 oclock. first of all we missed our last dinner together in haneda which we planned from long time ago!! there was a fish restoran and i wanted to take my children there and have a dinner and have talk. I was thinking to ask my family how was nice to live in japan and everthing was good and everybody was soo kind etc etc. but we misssed all these things. wait wait !!! it is not finished yet! suitcase came and we started to seperate the suitcases, then we realized each suitcase have different kg but in total 76 kg no problem! but the head staff of JAL came and told us to make a balance the suitcases in a strictl and bullying way. we were opening the suitcases and trying to make a good balance, but almost all of the staffs gathered and staring at us while laughing!! it was soo hurting and unbearable. Then we finished and meausured. for expamle 100 gr was exceeding in one suitcase but they came and told us to take that 100 gr stuff away in an arrogant way!! then as we we were sweating and got too much stressfull and trying to arrange the suitcases etc, we took hand baggages and intended to walk! agaion the headstaff and other crew came and told us " no no no you cant carry your 4 year old hand baggage by yourself, give it to her, other wise we will not accept! they threatened us to cancel the ticket and etc we got soo stresful again because by little bay was 4 yeasr old and she couldnt carry her stuff because there wereb tires with that bag we put her stuff!!! but they insisted on! then i tried to be calm and tried to find a solution. we exchaged the 9 years old son suitcase with my daughters one the the problem was solved once again. but then the head staff suddenly turned to my wife and she that because my wife said bad words about the airline, we will cancel your flight, you cant get on the airplane!!! other staffs were laughing and staring at us in a bullying way! all of our friend were at airport and they came to say bye bye to us but they witnesed this nonsense things too!! then we talked them again a while that we didnt say anything etc, eventually they said okay! but still not finished. they came to check us from our behind like a spy to check if my little 4 years old is holding her hand baggage or not!! it was heavy for my little baby but anyway, since we have terminated our house contract and it was our last day in japan!! we didnt want to cancel the flight and go back home!! If we had our home to stay, i would cancel that flight and never fly with that JAL which I hate the service and never seen that kind of bullying to a customer!! It was the last day but exactly was like the hell !!! and was very very bad memory for our last day in japan after living 14 years in japan! I came to haneda at 18:00 for the flight at 22:50, but because the mistake they did , it became a hell day for us and we were almost missing the flight as too much time passed until we get the board! of course were hungry as well!! Now i am planing to sue the JAL because the thing they did to me and my family! I hate JAL and never ever never use and recommend any one.

Japan Airlines cancelled my flight and resold the same route at nearly three times the price I originally paid. This is greedy, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable. Avoid this airline if you value fairness and peace of mind.

I took JL0098 from Taipei to Tokyo. When I collected my luggage, I found one of them was damaged, but as I continued traveling as well, and without a laptop with me, I reported it once I was back in my home country. JAL replied that they can't compensate me as over 8 days, which is rude and doesn't make sense; other airlines are allowed to report within 1-3 months. My luggage cost HK$1780, but now I can't use it anymore, because the damage makes it unable to lock properly.

Food keeps getting worse and worse absolutely unedible horrible food with a kind of attitude to match it

This airline is ranked as a 5-star airline, but I am confused as to how. The service in flight is poor, the food service only provides desserts and snacks to people with regular meal service, with no replacement options for those with special dietary needs. Even if they serve ice cream, vegetarians or gluten-free people free will not be allowed to take it. People on standby were given no food as they loaded exactly the same as the number of passengers as on the flight.

This is a terrible airline. The staff were unbelievably rude and completely unprofessional. I was treated with no respect or care at all. I will never fly with this airline again — not now, not ever. Absolutely unacceptable service.

JAL cancelled one of my confirmed flights on a multi-city booking. No explanation given and no alternate flight offered. When I last checked JAL was still offering this exact same package at nearly double of what I had paid.
Because I booked through Priceline, JAL said they could not help me to resolve this. At my request Priceline has cancelled the entire booking and will refund my money. After years of flying JAL I will never use them again, especially after finding out this has happened to many others.

The only way to upgrade a ticket is to bid on a ticket. The only way to do this is via their website. It is not guaranteed you’ll get an upgrade and you don’t find out until 24 hrs prior your flight. According to their website you can not talk to an advisor about upgrading. I wanted to upgrade my very elderly mother’s ticket from Japan so she would be comfortable on her flight home after falling ill abroad. There is also no useful information on their website on how I could get her airport assistance for her.
JAL once was one of the best most highly rated airlines. What has happened?

JAL service has completely fallen off a cliff and I recommend never flying with them again by switching to ANA.

Our flight from Sapporo to Haneda was delayed by over 4 hours (weather impacted so understandable) but their bag drop system and customer service is completely rotten to the core.

The oversize baggage counter was closed albeit 3 staffers manning the counter. I was told to queue up which took 2.25hrs - this is no hyperbole. They only had 2 desks open to accept well over a hundred people in the queue and one desk was clogged by a family who were tyring to work something out.

Meanwhile, the 'group' check in counter was EMPTY and they wouldnt allow people to use this counter. EVEN BUISINESS CLASS customers. How the hell are business class passengers told to wait for 2 hours just to check in! Completely absurd.

There was also a gentlman infront of me who waited the same time, but upon getting to the front of the queu was told he was in the wrong line.

No signage
No communication
Broken system

No thanks.

I will never fly JAL again and will move completely to ANA for both my domestic and international flights between Australia and Japan.

1 counter only for oversized luggage and required a 2 hour wait to drop off bags. Insane. JAL was the only airline with a line for bag drop. There was no helping people and encouraging them to use the automated service for standard luggage. Just terrible.

Very slow at X2 building Heathrow they seem to offload all Airworld vehicles and leave import collections like my self for hours they are useless been waiting 3 hours and yet when airworld turn up they are straight on them

Our flight from Sapporo to Toyko on Dec 31, 2024 was cancelled by JAL. Although there were many, many other JAL flights still operating on that route that day, for some reason ours was the only one cancelled and with no explanation. We asked customer service to help us because we had a connecting flight to catch. We were told to wait in line. After a ridiculous 2.5 hours waiting in line, we were told that all JAL flights to Tokyo were full and we had to fly the next day and we had to pay for a hotel ourselves. It made me think that they wanted us to miss our flights after our repeated requests of help ignored. We ended up paying for an alternative flight to Tokyo on ANA and then rescheduling our connecting flight to the next day (at great cost) and arranging and paying ourselves for a hotel. In addition, getting a refund for the cancelled JAL flight has been a big hassle too. I tried to call, but was put on hold.

Loved the service provided by all the crew from the first flight up to our return flight.

May I please congratulate you with every praise for the lady who handled my check-in at LHR around 6am on Monday 11 November. I have over the last few years decided to only fly with Japan Airlines (with very rare exceptions, when it is absolutely necessary or if work requires me to do so otherwise) because of your top notch world class customer service, but I have not experienced this level of customer service in the UK by a non-Japanese staff of yours. Unfortunately I did not take down her name, but she looked like she is of either South Asian or Middle Eastern descent (sorry for a vague description) and believe was at the counter second from far right. Her mannerism was superb, handling of my luggage was excellent even though I had initially forgotten to ask for through transfer from LHR onto my local domestic destination. Never had I before heard such correct use of "sama" at the end of my name by a non-Japanese JAL staff, and it was so refreshing especially after having had a disgusting journey with National Express, which prides itself in treating customers like cattle in getting to LHR, a land where there's no concept whatsoever of customer service.

Thank you so much for such pleasant, world-class service. This lady is an addition to the long list of why I only choose to fly our national flag carrier, with pride.

Unfortunately, I can only confirm the bad experiences with Japan Airlines (JAL). There are frequent cancellations and changes of booked flights and seats. Especially annoying: If you have booked seats for your family early and they cancel and change it without giving a reason. As a result, the minor children were seated separately from their parents in seats randomly selected by JAL on a 14 hours flight. This makes all the booking efforts useless and is just annoying. The customer service department can't do anything about it and only points out that JAL reserves the right to make changes at its own discretion. Unfortunately, this is a very common problem with Japan Airlines - for both economy and business class bookings. As a frequent flyer, I have not experienced the same problems with other airlines as I have with JAL. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend Japan Airlines.

I attempted to make a damaged bagged claim. The ONLY method of contact is by phone, no email available to you to claim. When I telephoned them in Perth, Western Australia, I was told I had to telephone Vancouver, Canada. I have refused to do that. THIS IS VERY, VERY POOR SERVICE. JAL are not helpful and have no intention to assist you with a baggage claim.

Top airline company in the world!

As a Japanese living in Europe, I always use Japan Airlines or All Nippon Airways to go back to Japan. In terms of Japan Airlines, cabin crews have a lot of hospitalities and the food is very nice! Also we have more spaces at our feet rather than other airlines, which makes me more comfortable to sit down for more than 12 hours.

We booked business class tickets 8 months in advance. There were numerous flight changes during this time which also included having to fly with other partner carriers and hours sitting at several airports. On 3 of our 4 return flights my partner and I were seated rows apart from each other and had to rely on the good will of other passengers to change seats. On our first flight the service was appalling. The seats are very narrow and so hard they feel like wood. The food was also terrible. Dimming the lights during day flights and having all the blinds down was also not good. Overall we will definitely never fly JAL again or recommend them.

All experiences with JAL have been excellent. First class service and comfort.