My husband and I are scheduled to fly to China in 3 weeks. The international flights (arranged by Viking River Cruises)from SFO are through All Nippon. We are going business class. I have never heard of this airline, although I understand it's a Star Alliance Partner with United and we are flying United from PHX to SFO.

Originally our seat assignments for the international flights were showing up in our "pending United itineraries" (along with the domestic flights) in our mileage plus accounts, but this week they disappeared. I called our TA who first called United who said they didn't show/know them. She then called All Nippon who said they were still showing the same seat assignments that had originally shown up in the mileage plus accounts and had been there for months till this week. Anyone have idea why they would first show and now not? TA didn't have a clue.

Given that United doesn't show them - will we have to recheck in at SFO with All Nippon to get boarding passes? TA wasn't sure.

Any recent traveler reviews of anyone who has traveled with the airline?

Comments/info appreciated.

Thanks, Pat

You should tell the TA to get this fixed. To avoid any hassle at SFO, you <b>absolutely want</b> all these sorted out, and they can be sorted out. That way the check-in agent at PHX won't be problem giving you the boarding pass, or at least tagging your luggage to the final destinations.

<i>&quot;TA didn't have a clue&quot;. &quot;TA wasn't sure&quot;.</i> Well, that's not acceptable. It's her responsibility to get a clue. If you want to take over her job, that's okay too. Find out all the PNRs (the 6-digit reservation numbers (one for UA, one for NH)) from her, call UA, call NH. Get it sorted out.

ANA (NH) is the largest domestic airline of Japan and also has large international operational. SFO-NRT is on their brand-new 777-300ERs. Business class has angled lie-flat seats and fancy audio-video on-demand. It should be nice.

I do agree with <b>rkkwan</b> about the TA deal. She should do a better job. That's what she's getting paid for,

but, just for fun, I have to disagree with him on the fact that Nippon is the largest Japanese airline. It's not. Japan Airlines (JL) is.

Wait wait. I said ANA is the largest <b>domestic</b> airline in Japan. From what I'm reading, it has about 50% market share for domestic routes now. JAL and other smaller airlines the other half.

according to this:

<i>It is the country's <b>second-largest domestic</b> and international airline after Japan Airlines</i>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Nippon_Airways

That sentence is so poorly written!

Okay, took me a while. But here's the 2007Q1 (April 1 to June 30) performance data from JAL:

www.jal.com/en/press/0001073/1073.html

Domestic revenue passenger kilometers for the period is 7,459,864,000.

Here's from ANA:

http://www.ana.co.jp/eng/aboutana/pr...07/070731.html

Domestic revenue passenger kilometers for the period is 9,299,000,000.

So, what do I win?

Actually, some interesting facts. First, the total number of domestic passengers are almost even. I didn't realize the domestic routes of NH can be that much longer than JL's.

Second, the load factor for both airlines are about <b>60%</b>. Sixty percent! Wow!!! Compared to 80+% here in the US.

Thanks for the suggestion. We haven't received our docs yet, but will follow-up with the airlines when they arrive - which should be this week.