Now that Air Canada is getting new Dreamliners soon with new reverse herringbone seats, I’m much more excited to fly them. As I detailed here, the Air Canada 787 is getting a new premium seat configuration on their new 787. The 787 has improved fuel efficiency so they can launch a lot of new routes that are long and thin such as BA’s Austin to London and ANA’s Tokyo to San Jose. I just read that Air Canada which says they’re going to be launching 787 service to Tokyo Haneda from Toronto!
New Air Canada Tokyo Haneda Service
According to the press release, Air Canada will be starting daily service from Toronto to Tokyo Haneda next year in July. The flight time looks as follows:
| Flight | Depart | Arrive |
| AC 005 | Toronto at 13:00 | Tokyo-Haneda at 14:55 (plus one day) |
| AC 006 | Tokyo-Haneda at 17:40 | Toronto at 16:40 |
It looks like a great daytime slot and flight times especially since Haneda is so much closer to Tokyo than Narita. Reservations for the new flights (and hopefully business class award space) will open in just a few days, starting December 10th. The reverse herringbone graphics that Air Canada has for the 787 in business class are amazing:
Air Canada 787 Business Class
This Air Canada Tokyo Haneda service will be the first direct flight from Canada to Tokyo Haneda and Air Canada’s first direct flight to Tokyo Haneda, as one or two years ago a Vancouver Tokyo Haneda Service was planned but never actually materialized. Air Canada currently has services to Tokyo-Narita from Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. I flew the YVR-NRT service back in August with the old herringbone seats, and while it was full-flat, the 787 reverse herringbone seats should be a major improvement over Air Canada’s current business class product.
Current AC Herringbone Seats
I’m really hoping award space for the new Air Canada Tokyo Haneda flight is good so I can burn some USDM that I’ve racked up with the Share Promotion which I wrote about here (reminder, today is the last day to share miles!). I also wrote a post on strategy with sharing USDM which might be worth a read if you haven’t already shared miles yet.
If you want to redeem for this flight with Aeroplan miles, remember that Aeroplan does have fuel surcharges when flying on Air Canada metal. This is a good post to read which has an overview of all airlines that Aeroplan levies fuel surcharges on. Aeroplan is a AMEX Membership Rewards transfer partner.
Press Release: Air Canada Tokyo Haneda Toronto 787 Service
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How did AC get daytime HND slots? I thought transpacific flights were restricted to 10pm-6am to protect NRT?
Recently the Japanese government released some daytime slots. AC got one of them.
I hope AC starts flying their 787’s to SIN one day, even SIN via HND on AC 787 would be very good!
Be warned! If you use Aeroplan miles and have some type of issue while you are traveling, you better hope their service center is open. I had an “experience” with missing a connection because of weather issues and let’s just say that AC was CLOSED and the other airline that had the award ticket on wouldn’t budge without action from AC. I saw screw that, I’d rather pay more miles to know an airline is open 24/7 to change award reservations. If things have change with AC, you can ignore what I just said.