JAL is considering future projects using such retired aircraft.
The 4-day course is also available for 6 days, and if you choose this course, you can select optional tours (1 day at Disneyland Park, Annaheim baseball game, etc.) on the 4th day for an extra charge. The number of participants for this tour was 47. The total number of participants for this tour was 47.
The package includes a city tour of Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood upon arrival in Los Angeles, as well as a sightseeing plan the next day that includes the Victorville and Mojave airports and other classic local spots. Accommodations are at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport, which also has a runway view.
On board the aircraft, Mr. Aida and his crew, who were not pilots or flight controllers but attendants for this tour only, provided on-the-spot commentary from the cockpit. They provided real-time explanations of the flight’s interactions with air traffic control and runways during taxiing, takeoff, and other situations.
The tour will depart from Haneda at 20:00 on May 16 to Los Angeles as flight JL8132. The route differs from the normal route from Japan to Los Angeles, passing over Napa Valley and San Francisco, which are associated with the aircraft, and low-passing Victorville, which is the final destination of JA701J, before entering LAX.
When the decision was made to retire JA701J, a voice within the company said, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could carry passengers on the ferry?” Yugo Aida and Jumpei Yamashita, co-pilots of the 777 Flight Crew, and Tomonori Nagase and Seiya Nagano, schedulers, launched the project, and Rina Yasutate and Teruhiro Ohno, flight controllers, joined them. joined them. What started as a small group turned into a 50-person project.
On May 16, JAL organized a tour to take passengers on a ferry (transport) flight of a retired Boeing 777-200ER (registration code: JA701J). The destination was Los Angeles. This is the first time in JAL’s history (and the first in Japan) that passengers can board an international ferry flight of a retired aircraft to be sold.
An unprecedented tour born from the idea of four members of the flight crew
Before the tour participants boarded, the four aforementioned planners were available for interviews and explained the background of the project from its birth to the day of implementation.
According to Mr. Aida, when the 777-200ER was scheduled to be retired before the summer of 2022, the Flight Operations Department wondered if there was an opportunity to give something back to those who had loved the 777 so far, and a young employee in the Operations Planning Department suggested that they might be able to take customers on the ferry of the sold aircraft. It took about a year for the project to be implemented.
However, the customs clearance procedures and other details differ between ferry flights of sold aircraft and paid flights that carry passengers, and Mr. Aida explains that it was necessary to start by confirming whether passengers could be carried on the ferry in the first place.
The final date for the tour was decided between the end of March and the beginning of April, after the sale contract was signed and taking into consideration the schedule of maintenance work before the handover. The event was held in the midst of a favorable wind.
The original flight plan for this flight was very different from the usual route, as it was to pass through a land that Mr. Aida and Mr. Yamashita had a connection with for training and other purposes. The flight plan, including the fuel to be carried, had to be newly created, and the early joining of the two flight managers was a major factor in this regard.
Mr. Andachi also worked with the company and local air traffic control to develop a plan for the low-pass flight from Victorville to Los Angeles, as the approach to Los Angeles is from the opposite side of the city from scheduled flights from Japan. Therefore, the plan was worked out in cooperation with the company and local air traffic control. On the other hand, Mr. Ohno said that there were airspace areas where the aircraft (JA701J) could not fly due to its performance, and it was difficult to figure out how to route the aircraft based on this.
Because JA701J was originally operated as a short- to medium-haul international flight, it was not equipped with software that corrects for the North Pole and the earth’s axis, which limited its ability to select Anchorage Airport, which is close to the poles, as an emergency landing site in the event of a problem.
Incidentally, Midway and Honolulu were chosen as the divert destinations for this flight, and since the flight will be via the south more than usual, while also approaching the North American continent and then heading north along the west coast to Los Angeles, they carefully considered many times whether this route was really feasible.
© Source travel watch
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