Airbus A380: The not-so-popular game changer
ANA A380

ANA’s New Honu Hawaii Service Now Bookable, Including First Class Award Redemptions!

All Nippon Airways (ANA) will be taking delivery of its first A380 this year. They are actually the only airline left on the Airbus books that doesn’t already have the plane in its fleet. The first A380 for ANA came out of the paint shop just a few weeks ago and it looks stunning. ANA has purchased 3 of the aircraft to fly exclusively between  Tokyo (NRT) and Honolulu (HNL)

a map of the world

The airline will be launching A380 service as of May 24, 2019, with the following schedule :

  • NH184 Tokyo Narita to Honolulu departing 8:20PM arriving 8:40AM
  • NH183 Honolulu to Tokyo Narita departing 11:30AM arriving 3:00PM (+1 day)

That will operate 3x weekly until July 1, 2019 when it becomes daily A380 service.

On top of that, ANA will fly a 2nd A380 frequency as of July 1, 2019, on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays:

  • NH182 Tokyo Narita to Honolulu departing 9:35PM arriving 10:10AM
  • NH181 Honolulu to Tokyo Narita departing 12:45PM arriving 4:00PM (+1 day)

As of today, ANA’s new A380 service between Tokyo Narita and Honolulu is now on sale and ANA has some first class award availability on the route, should you want to test out ANA’s new A380 first class.

The A380 first class suites will be different from the ANA Lay-z-boy style recliner found on its other aircraft. The A380 suite will include doors along with standard updated amenities like larger and sharper TV screens, enhanced food and beverage, and unique amenity kits.

a computer cubicle with a desk and computer screens

Currently first and business class space is very limited. You can easily find United Everyday awards. I was able to find just one example of Saver Level first class space from 85,000 United MilagePlus miles:

a screenshot of a calendar

You can also use 66,000 Avianca LifeMiles and $30 USD to for the flights which is a much better value give the lower award cost and ease of transferring to Avianca LifeMiles:

a screenshot of a flight schedule

Flying this route from Honolulu (HNL) to Tokyo (NRT) seems to be the way to go here, as it is a day flight.  Passengers would get to experience the true service, while on the reverse route you will mostly be sleeping. I would imagine that award availability will only get better from here, it’s just a matter of time before they release more space. ANA will have a ton of premium seats flying on this route with up to 128 lie-flat seats per day. The A380 will be spread out in 4 cabins.

Cabin First Class Business Class Premium Economy Economy
# Seats 8 56 73 383

Sam is looking forward to flying on the ANA A380 this year. Will you be flying the route too?