Review of ANA flight from Chitose to Tokyo in Economy

The return trip from Hokkaido back to Tokyo was more interesting. Originally we were booked onto an A321neo at 9.20pm, which would mean we would be flying a boring narrowbody for a tight connection. Hence, we proceeded to the checkin desk and asked if we could standby for an earlier flight, and what we got was a Boeing 787-10 at 6.30pm😁

The New Chitose Airport of Sapporo is enormous, almost like a shopping mall itself

After requesting for the earlier flight, we proceeded to the security check. Given that we are East Asians, the staff automatically spoke Japanese to us, a common problem when we visited Japan lol

Today's flight is operated by the newest aircraft in the fleet: JA990A at only a few months of age.

With so many passengers on the flight, the boarding gate was a chaotic crowd, but with the efficient group boarding, everyone was on board within the next 15 minutes.

Most of ANA's Boeing 787-10 are domestically configured with an extreme density of 401 economy seats, arranged in 3-3-3 layout with a 31-inch seat pitch.

The flight was still delayed for a few minutes due to some technical problems on the flight deck. While waiting, we started exploring the IFE system, which consists of a 13.3 inch high-resolution touch screen. The selection for the domestic aircraft was limited when compared with the international fleet, but new movies like Zootopia 2 and Tokyo Taxi (東京タクシー) could be seen. After reaching 10,000 ft, free inflight Wifi would also be made available to all passengers despite being a little slow.

After the technical was settled, we were pushed back with the Pokemon themed safety videos shown on the screens.

And here we are departing Sapporo. We would go over a small part of Pacific Ocean and go down along the Tohoku region until we arrive at Tokyo.

In the meantime, free drinks were delivered to passengers, and my choice was the signature Beef Consomme soup only available on ANA domestic flights. It had a rich umami flavour though reminding me of the Gyudon sauce of Yoshinoya (吉野家).

For my dinner, I chose this Kani Bento from New Chitose as free food was not offered on ANA's domestic flights either. I have to admit this was a bit of a letdown with the savour of the crab meat being masked by the pickle

The loo also amazed me with a full-size mirror offered. It was spacious but it didn't include the washlet like they do on the international configured 787s

Soon after, we were descending into Haneda Airport. Perhaps the weather wasn't perfect, or the pilots were trying to make up for the time caused by the delay, the descent was rushed and the aircraft rocked from side to side pretty violently until the moment we touched down. In the end, the gate arrival time was around 20 mins behind scheduled and the crew kept apologising to the passengers. Again, the entire plane deboarded in an orderly fashion while the Pokemon video was played.

And we were off for a few pints before our next flight departs at midnight