At eighty-three years of age, I was a little apprehensive about flying the fourteen hours that London to Tokyo now takes.
While my career took me all over the world by plane in the days of Pan Am and Swissair, duirng the last twenty-odd years of retirement I’ve been doing less and less longhaul flying because it’s very tiring.
In fact, after a trip to South Africa in January 2020, I said ‘never again’ to longhaul given my age, but when my son John (who many of you will know) offered to show me around Japan for a month this November I felt the opportunity was too good to miss.
He told me ANA business class was among the best in the sky, and that I’d be comfortable and rested when I arrived. Altogether, we thought that paying a bit more for the nonstop flight than a connection, and a bit more than British Airways for the comfort, was well worth it.
Candidly, he took care of all of the booking arrangements for me. I’m pretty good with my iPhone, iPad and iMac (I enjoy TikTok and Instagram, and am an enthusiastic member of a few online crafting and cooking groups) but figuring out everything to do with a longhaul flight would be beyond me these days. When I used to travel, we just called our travel agent Wendy, but she’s also long retired and I don’t think travel agents exist in the same way these days.
John booked me as a wheelchair-to-gate passenger, having warned me that the walks — and, especially, the queueing — at London Heathrow and in Tokyo can be long. My husband drove me to Heathrow and dropped me off right at the ANA business class checkin desk a few minutes before they opened, which was easy to find.
Once I was checked in, the desk supervisor noticed that the wheelchair that had been ordered had not arrived, so she went and found one so I could sit comfortably until the attendant arrived. He was very nice, and wheeled me straight through security without any hassles.
The assistance then fell apart a little bit. I was loaded onto a buggy, supposedly heading for the Singapore Airlines lounge, but for some reason I was brought back to where I started, and I had to explain that I was heading for the lounge rather than the buggy loading zone.
Eventually I was dropped off at the Singapore lounge, which was nice enough but nothing to write home about, and I was able to charge up my phone and iPad in advance of the flight, and to message my family.
Give the Singapore Airlines lounge its due, I was able to find a spot to sit down and charge my devices Image: Tena Walton
Overall, it seemed like there were too many passengers and too few staff for the amount of space in the lounge. As one example, some of the hot foods (especially the mee goreng noodles that I fancied) ran out, and it took a while for it to be replenished.
The food was nice in the Singapore Airlines lounge, but very picked over. Image: Tena Walton
As it happened, my flight was departing from a gate right next to the lounge, and while the lounge staff did offer to call a wheelchair, I did fancy the short walk before the long flight.
When I got to the gate, the agent who had checked me in recognised me and immediately escorted me straight onto the plane. I was the first onboard, and relieved to be able to put away all my things at my leisure. The kind and welcoming crew took care of my rolling carry-on and introduced me to the seat.
The doors made the seat very private. Image: Tena Walton
I was very grateful that they didn’t overwhelm me with information about how the seat worked, plus the movie screen, plus the doors, plus how it all turned into a bed, but hastened to reassure me that they would be happy to do it all for me. To be entirely honest, it would have taken me ages to figure out what all the buttons did, let alone the movie screen, which didn’t work like my iPad does.
In fairness, though, I fell deeply asleep after dinner so didn’t even explore the movies onboard! The food onboard was excellent.
The variety in the starter course was super, and the food was outstanding. Image: Tena Walton
My son had recommended the Japanese food, and I’d asked him to preorder it.
Having all this delicious Japanese food before even getting to Tokyo was a real treat! Image: Tena Walton
I particularly liked the variety of delicious morsels for the starter, and the yellowtail teriyaki was very tasty.
The teriyaki fish and the miso soup were excellent. Image: Tena Walton
The Chablis was very nice and just what I like in a white wine, and the morning coffee was excellent too.
I’d thought I might like the Japanese breakfast, but as it happened I ended up not fancying the fish-and-rice at what was an early hour body time. Instead I had a light selection of yogurt and fruit from the anytime choices.
As it turned out, what I really fancied for breakfast was a yogurt! Image: Tena Walton
Compared with the Emirates A380 seat I’ve flown a few times, this ANA seat is much bigger, more spacious, and very comfortable as a bed and as a seat. The crew made up my bed after dinner, which I was very grateful for, since I honestly wouldn’t have known where to start with the oddly shaped mattress pad and all the various bits of pillows and blankets and whatnot.
The seat was really wide — almost like a sofa! Image: Tena Walton
The crew closed my suite doors and, unusually for me, I slept almost the entire rest of the flight, until just before the breakfast service, so full marks to the bed!
I really liked the doors, which made the seat and bed feel really private. It was also very long in bed mode, and as someone who’s reasonably tall for a woman (1m78cm or 5’10”) I had loads of room. The duvet felt lovely and was the perfect temperature, and the pillow was very comfortable.
The crew were especially caring and helpful. I think they sort of assigned a particular crew member to look after me, or at least my section of the cabin, and she spoke excellent English.
The crew also sorted out connecting my phone to the inflight wifi, since the process was pretty complicated. (My son tells me that I should mention here that I’ve had zero problems getting straight online, all by myself, at every Japanese railway station, coffee shop, wifi-equipped train and hotel for the last few weeks, so that’s perhaps something for the people who run the airplane wifi to think about!)
I really like the little blue amenity bag they handed out, as well as the reusable shopping bag (which has been very useful on my trip!) but I didn’t use the two little tubes of cosmetics, since I brought my own. The little slippers that were at my seat were very comfortable.
Honestly, this has been a trip of a lifetime, and halfway through the trip — even though I was a bit worried about the flight before departure — I find I’m looking forward to the return flight. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend ANA to anyone else visiting Japan.
I thought there was a lot of room for my feet in bed mode. Image: Tena Walton
About the Author
After a lifetime as an international civil servant, among other parts of her varied career, Tena Walton retired to the UK with her husband twenty years ago. She still enjoys travel, most often to see her son, RGN’s deputy editor John Walton (who assisted with some of this review), at his home in France.
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Featured image credited to Tena Walton
