The faster Lane / Tyler Brûlé
Facing the music
There’s a certain ritual that comes with filing this column from Tokyo. It’s usually written pre-dinner from the sofa of room 4701 at the Park Hyatt. Normally, there’s a glass of wine and a bowl of strawberries from Kyushu on the coffee table. I press the “do not disturb” button so that I’m not interrupted by the turn-down service. And, if all goes well, about 650 to 900 words are filed to London for a speedy turnaround and global send-out. This Saturday eve, it’s all change. It started in Paris on Friday evening. Instead of the late Air France flight to Haneda, I boarded Japan Airlines flight JL 46. I have grown rather fond of Air France of late and held out until the last minute, hoping a seat would clear. But by the start of the week it was looking unlikely that anything would free up, so I stuck with my JAL booking.
The boarding was efficient, orderly and polite, and as I walked onto the aircraft, I heard the delightfully schmaltzy theme song. I was transported back a decade or so to a time when JAL was my regular shuttle and David Foster’s chorus I Will Be There With You would follow me around Tokyo for days. I was so distracted by the familiarity of it all that I didn’t notice the gentleman in the seat in front of me until I returned from the bathroom and heard “Hello Mr Tyler” in a voice belonging to my friend Hide. As the boarding process was taking a bit of time (the French passengers are not quite as drilled as the Japanese in the very evolved art of boarding a 777 without ever having to stop in the aisle), we chatted about summer travel plans and business (he’s launching a tea company to go with his saké brand) and made a tentative date to meet in London in June.
Some 10 minutes later, we were high above France and the aircraft was doing gentle arcs around the thunderstorms gathering over the east of the country. The crew had donned stripy aprons at this point and there were several rounds of introductions. The first crew member told me that she was running the galley and wanted to highlight the wagyu special that they had on board to celebrate 60 years of the Tokyo-Paris route. Shortly after, the chief purser introduced herself and said that they had now switched champagne. Laurent-Perrier was only for boarding but Billecart-Salmon was the chosen champagne for the in-flight service. She hoped that was okay. I assured her that all was right with the world at that moment and I was very happy to be back on JAL.
I surveyed the menu and counted 35 different dishes across their Japanese, French and classic Western menu. I then did an inventory of the amenities, the magazine and other printed material in various seat pockets and soon established that I was most definitely back in 2009 – a time when newspapers and magazines were still an in-flight feature, immaculate grooming a brand asset and adding service and innovation rather than cutting back was a defining trait for some carriers. Hide-san recommended some sakés to go with dinner and I was so happy with my little JAL moment that I almost passed out before the crew member gently shook my shoulder and asked whether I wanted to hang my clothes and change into pyjamas while she made the bed. A colleague working at a European carrier recently told me that there was an ongoing discussion about loosening up the grooming at his airline and whether male crew could start wearing their hair longer and also paint their nails and if women could also have theirs longer – on their legs. If you’re the type of reader who cares about such things, then you’ll be happy to know that the “workplace should be a free-for-all tsunami” has not hit the management offices of Japan Airlines. JAL might have female captains, not to mention a woman as CEO, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a male crew member pouring coffee or helping with seat assignments on any long-haul flights.
I woke up somewhere over Japan’s west coast and 45 minutes later, we rolled up to the gate at Haneda, said goodbye to the crew and Hide, zipped through immigration and greeted the driver with a sign, not for the Park Hyatt but the Palace Hotel Tokyo. If you’ve already managed to catch our June issue, then you’ll have seen our 16-page homage to the Park Hyatt – captured before it closed its doors earlier this month. The hotel will be back in about a year’s time but until then, GMs from various properties have been trying to win our business. Today’s column is being written from a different sofa; somehow there are strawberries and also fresh air. The Palace is one of the few grand hotels with proper balconies. I’m looking out toward the Imperial Palace and the lights of Toranomon and Roppongi are twinkly in the distance and, unsurprisingly, David Foster’s boarding tune is on heavy repeat in my head. You might want to have a listen here.
