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ANA brings back the Boeing 777 with THE Room and THE Suite

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ANA is bringing back its flagship aircraft for all London flights from the end of October.

With Japan reopening, albeit at a snail’s pace, Japanese airline ANA has started to rebuild its international route network. As part of that, it will return to flying the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft exclusively to London, once daily from 30th October.

This is excellent news because in 2019 ANA installed fantastic new business class and first class seats. Both are impressively wide, with THE Room (pictured below), the business class seat, almost twice as wide as your average lie-flat seat.

ANA The Room London

Whilst we haven’t flown it, Rob did get to sit in it on the ground at a media event. It was so big that at one point he was sat side-by-side with someone else in the same seat and there was still space between them.

As we wrote last month, you can redeem Virgin Points on ANA for THE Room or THE Suite. It is one of the best Virgin redemptions out there – not only do you get an exceptional on board experience but it is also shockingly good value.

The only snag is that availability is often tight and you will have to be flexible with your dates.

Before you book, remember that Japan is not yet fully open to tourists. There is still a daily passenger cap in place, although it was reported yesterday that there is significant pressure to re-open more widely later this month.

Comments (32)

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  • Alan says:

    Highly recommend The Suite with ANA – flew it in 2019,absolutely fantastic.

  • Dave Brass says:

    I was in Tokyo earlier this year (July) with work, flew out with Swiss, but came back with ANA on a 777 with the Room.

    I’ll say that the hard product is amazing, the seat is wide and very spacious and the foot well isn’t that cramped (compared to say the seats with Thai or Swiss) so I managed to get some decent sleep. The crew are prompt and helpful and the Japanese meal service, with the traditional way of serving dishes a delight.

    However, I still prefer Singapore Airline’s offering. Their lounges are better (though I’ve not flown SIA since covid, so they could be as bland), and as much as the ANA meal experience with sake menu was great, I still prefer the food and the book the cook concept in SIA. Also ANA’s IFE was a bit “meh”.

    • Dave Brass says:

      I forgot to add, I think the SIA business class seat is as good as the ANA seat, hence with the rest of the soft offerings, I still rate SIA over ANA

  • Mario Fonseca says:

    I may be doing something wrong here but I’m seeing exactly zero seats available in J/F on ANA between London and Tokyo from now until the end of schedule.

    • peckishpassport says:

      Award availability is almost non-existent on exEU or London routes at the moment.

      • The real Swiss Tony says:

        Just a data point that might be of limited use, but EVA seem to be dumping surplus inventory into award seats around 5 days before departure on the LHR-BKK route.

        At maybe 3 days out, they were offering 3 J seats and I believe the plane then went out full.

        • Vit says:

          Thanks very much! I managed to have some handicapped mileages (~35k), which was due to expire in late 2020, extended till March 2023. It seems like they do that not just the LHR – BKK route but also other routes as well. Hopefully Japan is fully open by end of this year / early next year.

  • Richard G says:

    I just had my December flight (LHR -> HND) cancelled, I assume because they’re sorting out the schedule. Hopefully not too much drama with the new dates.

  • Gareth says:

    Really sad flying tomorrow, was looking forward to the Room ,but changed to 787

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