American Airlines 787 LAX-Tokyo Business Class Review (2018)

My American Airlines 787 LAX-Tokyo business class review was part of my work trip to Japan. Traveling with coworkers is always interesting, especially if they are not frequent travelers. Since we needed to get right to client meetings and presentations when we landed, we had been allowed to book business class flights for the trip. We all flew in to LAX and from there we’d take American to Tokyo.

Note:

Dear Reader,

Before you begin this review journey with me, I want you to know that this review is a bit dated. It is from before the COVID pandemic. I had planned on publishing this one and others slowly during and after the pandemic. However, my job at the time requested I not write them. As some of the airlines were their clients, they explicitly requested I refrain from writing anything that could imply any conflict of interest. Recently, after starting a new job, I have decided to publish this one and others. I will note wherever I can what has changed, and include a year for when the flight happened, in the interest of clarity. Please enjoy this review!

Arrival @ LAX and Lounge

I landed from Philadelphia, while my other coworkers landed from New York and Atlanta. We decided to meet up at the Oneworld business class lounge at TBIT. We spent some time there and my coworkers (who had never traveled business class internationally) were very impressed. The lounge was fine, however, the Qantas First lounge just above it would have been the place to go. With Oneworld Emerald status, I could have only brought one of them, and picking favorites at work is a recipe for disaster. So we hung out at the Oneworld lounge instead.

Gate & Boarding

A little over an hour from our scheduled departure, we headed back to Terminal 4 for our departure to Tokyo. The gate was packed and the flight was oversold. As we waited for business class to be called up to board, we noticed that the flight attendants had not boarded. Not surprising, boarding was delayed. Boarding eventually started some 25 minutes late, with Concierge Key passengers invited to board, followed by Groups 1 and 2.

Cabin & Seat

Our flight was on an American Airlines 787-9. The aircraft is equipped with Super Diamond life flat seats. This is the type of seat that most American 787-9s have (as of 2025). Although it is not as private as other lie flat seat options, it was more than comfortable enough for me. The cabin was was nearly empty as we boarded. I had selected seat 4L, with my coworkers picking seats on the A side.

The seat has a large IFE screen that’s touch sensitive. I found it to be rather slow to respond, and used the remote control to control the screen. The seat controls are on the inside-side of the seat and they are rather intuitive.

Amenities

Waiting at our seat were a bedding packet, an amenity kit and some headphones. The bedding included a mattress pad and a comfortable blanket. There were also some slippers to use during the flight. The mattress pad made a huge difference in sleep comfort.

The Cole Haan branded amenity kit was stocked with the usuals: lip balm, lotion, socks, a pen and an eye mask. The kit itself felt cheap. The polyester bag was not something I would use at all. Although I ended up taking it home (as I have a collection of amenity kits sans contents), it was a very disappointing item for a premium cabin. American has since then dumped Cole Haan for their business class amenity kits. Their new partnerships include higher quality kits from Raven+Lily. Having flown on American business class since they launched these partnerships, the new kits are orders of magnitude better.

The headphones were the usual Bang and Olufsen. These are some of the best noise canceling headphones offered by any airline. Underneath them was a menu for the flight.

Departure & Take-Off

After getting settled, a flight attendant came down the aisle with drinks. The options were water, orange juice and sparkling wine. I opted for the orange juice. It was served in a small plastic “glass”.

Boarding was completed relatively quickly, however, we had another delay due to paperwork issues. About an hour after our scheduled departure, we finally pushed off. It was a hot, sunny day in SoCal. Taxiing by some fun aircraft, we took off to the west on our 11 hour flight to Tokyo.

Dining

On flights to/from Japan, American offers a Japanese meal or a Western meal. This is similar to what their joint venture partner Japan Airlines offers. That’s the only similarity. The menu read as follows:

Main Meal

For my main meal I selected the Japanese option. The meal started with a selection of drinks and warm nuts. That was followed by the Irodori Gozen. It was presented in a bento-box type container, a long with chopsticks. I was pleasantly surprised, as the food tasted good and seemed to be high quality. I ate all of it. The snow crab was surprisingly good.

The dainomono (equivalent to the main course) was steak with usual Japanese sides and a miso soup. The meat was not very well seasoned and, although it was overcooked, arrived lukewarm.

For dessert, I ordered the ice cream sundae. It was delicious.

For comparison, Japanese meals on JAL out of LAX are miles better. It’s hard to understand how the JV here works, which should represent a situation where passengers feel equally taking either carrier. The economics of the JV are obvious, yet the passenger experience still leaves a lot to harmonize.

Mid-flight Snack

Mid-flight, I ordered the pastrami sandwich. It was nothing special, but I was bored and hungry.

Pre-Arrival Meal

The pre-arrival meal also had a Japanese and a Western option. I ordered the beef donburi. It was the best meal on this flight. The meat was tender and flavorful. The large portion meal was accompanied by a chocolate cheesecake and a side salad. It was one of the best pre-arrival meals I have had on American.

Sleep Comfort

After the main meal, I decided to sleep for a while. I put up the mattress pad on the seat and put it in lie flat mode. It was comfortable enough that I was able to sleep for a solid 5 hours.

After watching a couple of TV shows, I ended up falling asleep again without the mattress pad. Without it, the seat was not particularly comfortable and I slept only another 45 minutes.

Wi-Fi & Entertainment

The flight was equipped with Panasonic wifi. It is one of the slowest wifi options available on any airlines (maybe second to Emirate’s OnAir). I opted for a 3 hour wifi pass to finish out work on for the client presentations. It was a fool’s errand. Without a reliable bandwidth speed, I couldn’t even open pdf attachments. Right after the main meal, the wifi went completely out for over half the flight.

The IFE on American is pretty good. They have a wide selection of movies and TV shows. My only complaint is the only 3-4 episodes per series for TV shows. I wish they had whole seasons to binge.

Landing & Arrival

Around 45 minutes before landing, the pilot came on the PA to provide an update on our arrival time and weather in Tokyo. He apologized for the delay and requested flight attendants prepare the cabin for landing a little earlier than usual.

Our approach to Tokyo was rather bumpy with some wind in the area. We landed about 35 minutes behind schedule. After a slow taxi to the gate, my coworkers and I went past immigration and customs and were on the train to Tokyo.

Conrado’s Thoughts

American is a perfectly adequate airline to travel to Japan on. It is not a premium experience, especially compared to JAL, ANA and Singapore who also fly this route. That said, I was fed and was able to rest on this flight. If they were able to improve their wifi provider, these flights would at least be productive. However, putting things in perspective, my coworkers were so impressed. They could not stop raving about sleeping on a lie flat seat. They were so excited about ordering free drinks and the amenity kits. I sometimes forget how lucky I am to travel frequently and to travel in premium cabins. It made me really happy to see my coworkers so overjoyed. It’s a good reminder that what for some might be “perfectly adequate”, for others might be the best flight of their lives so far.

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