How does American arlines rate against other airlines to Tokyo. How is the food, service, entertainment in economy class on these flights. Does it matter that they use M11 instead of 747. Thanks

I've never flown them to Tokyo, but I have in the U.S. (both coach and business class). Most travelers to Tokyo (from NY) that I know prefer Japan Airlines (JAL). I have to say that the staff at American seem to think that they are running a utility rather than a service business. I have had uniformly bad service on American including the following examples:

(1)no one to check-in business and first class passenger at LAX for the red-eye to JFK -- and totally unapologetic about it. Not a crisis to stand in a long line with coach -- but unexpected for a $2,000 ticket.

(2) a specially ordered low carbohyrdate meal that consisted of pasta, cous cous and rice, accompanied by a dinner roll (i.e. nothing but carohydrates)-- and a flight attendant that argued with me that it was in fact a low carbohydrate meal b/c that's what the label said, refused to give me a chicken entre (claims she threw it away), never offerd to find a meal for me (I don't travel without my own food anymore), refused to let me talk to the purser (acually said she would ask her to see me, never did (actually never even attempted to), and when I got up to go find the purser myself, rudely told me she was busy in First Class). When I went to the rear gally to ask for something suitable to eat, they acting like I was bothering them.

(3) Once, I was originally booked on a United flight with a business class ticket. I attempted to take an earlier American flight - to join some co-workers who were on that flight. The counter agent, when asked if I could get on an earlier flight from SFO to JFK in business class first said yes, then proceeded to book me into a coach seat (with no refund for the difference mind you). When I pointed out that my ticket was a business class ticket, I wanted a business class seat, and that he had booked me in coach, he said with a snort, "Business class is full -- THAT'S not going to happen!" He couldn't understand why that was a problem, and basically threw my ticket back at me when I said I'd rather take my original United flight in an excellent business class (which I did).

So while my experiences are not on a Tokyo flight, I doubt any of this would have happened on JAL. I find that few Japanese service firms forget who the customer is and who is paying the bill.

Actually, there was a NY Times editorial a few years ago that specifically compared American to JAL on that trip -- basicially concluded that helpfulness of staff, cleanliness of bathrooms (AA flight attendants wouldn't stoop to clean up a PASSENGER bathroom, especially for COACH, while the JAL crew had someone specifically assigned to this task), meals, etc. were all far superior on JAL. The author was lamenting that AA couldn't keep up.

Good luck and thanks for a chance to vent about American.

Dear Gordon, <BR> <BR>I agree with Sean. Fly JAL.

I must agree with Sean: my experiences on American have been uniformly bad as well. <BR> <BR>The only thing to note: JAL does allow smoking on its flights (although this may have changed).

Simple advice - don't fly an American Airline into Asia - pick an Asia Pacific airline such as JAL, ANA, Cathy Pacific, Singapore , Qantas etc. <BR>JAL are now part of the global agreement banning smoking on flights.

We flew on AA to Narita and JAL on to Thailand. There wasn't that much difference. The food was somewhat better on JAL but it was the same type plane with the very same movies. JAL would not give us an assigned seat until we got to Narita except on first or business class fares. So although we had purchased our tickets several months in advance we still had lousy seats.

I fly to Japan three to four times a year, and while I agree that many USA airlines (specifically NW and AA) compare badly with the Japanese airlines, no all of them do. For example, I flew United a few times. The service was certainly not bad and the food was at times better than JAL or ANA. My one trip on Delta was also quite decent. In addtion, the little diversions -films and magazines- were more various and accessible on the American airlines. Finally, I think-well, I didn't measure it so perhaps I imagined- that the seats were larger. <BR> <BR>In sum, go with JAL or ANA or United or (on my evidence of one trip) Delta.

American know flies 777s into Narita. I believe they are fine, although Singapore, Thai, and other Asian airlines typically have more courteous cabin staffs.