Milan-Tokyo, there is a date for ANA's first flight: December 3. And reservations can already be made within days

It is the most 'talked about' flight in recent years. In the sense that if has been talked about for almost five years: It was in fact the fall of 2019 when All Nippon Airways (ANA) announced. The opening of a flight between its Tokyo Haneda hub and Milan Malpensa airport.. The link Should have been triggered on April 20, 2020 with three weekly frequencies, set to become daily from July 10 of the same year.

Then, In the early 2020s, the Covid pandemic swept the planet. and as of March 8 of that year, Italy went into lockdown, the first nation in the world to adopt that measure outside of China. Of course, Of ANA's flight was made waste paper, like others scheduled for that year over Italy (such as theEVA Airways to Taipei).

If Europe gradually reopened, albeit in hiccups and reversals, starting in the summer of 2020, Japan fared much worse, in that the country remained closed to foreign visitors for more than two years.

From Reopening of the borders, which took place in June 2022, there was obviously a return to the Tokyo-Milan talk., wondering if and when ANA wanted to follow up on the fall 2019 announcement. E There is now, finally, a date: Dec. 3.

That day, flight NK208 will leave Haneda Airport at 1:30 a.m. to land in Malpensa at 8:30 a.m. The first flight from Malpensa to Tokyo (NH 208) will leave two hours later at 10:30 a.m. to arrive in the Japanese capital at 7:30 a.m. the next day.

Connections will be tri-weekly, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. And the Japanese company has left nothing to hint about an increase in frequencies, although the traffic between Italy and Japan Is soaring, so much so as to suggest that the increase in flights will be there and one will not even have to wait long for it (even considering the fact that ANA's will be the only nonstop connection between the two countries).

In 2023, the first 'whole' year since Japan's borders reopened, as many as 152,400 Italians traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun, and between January and May 2024 there were 81,100, an increase of 65.1% compared with the same period last year.

The flight will open for reservations on Monday, July 22. Passengers will be able to choose between three classes of service, aboard the Boeing 787-9 Who will serve for Tokyo and who will have on board 48 seats in the Business Class cabin, 21 in the Premium Economy cabin and 146 in the Economy cabin. These are. a very low-density setup (215 total seats on a 787-9 are very few, for an airplane that usually in a three-class layout seats between 270 and 290.

In Business the layout is 1-2-1 with lie-flat seats that become 190-centimeter-long beds and an 18-inch IFE screen.

In Premium Economy, the layout is 2-3-2 with a row spacing of 38 inches and one 10.6-inch screen for the IFE, while In Economy there is the classic 3-3-3 of Dreamliners with a generous row spacing of 34 inches (versus the 31-32 usually found on intercontinental flights) but An inflight entertainment screen of just 9 in., which are very few compared to the standards in Economy of many airlines.

Business passengers will enjoy free wifi, while those flying in Premium Economy and Economy Class will be able to send free text messages with the Wi-Fi service by the end of March 2025. It should be mentioned that on board the 787-9s that will fly between Milan and Tokyo ANA will not have its flagship Business product, which is called the 'The Room' and is only found on some of its 777-300ERs.

With this in mind, it should be mentioned that All Nippon Airways is part of the exclusive 'club' of 10 airlines worldwide that can boast the prestigious 5 Skytrax Stars and having them received continuously since 2013 is one of the carriers in the world that have consistently demonstrated a very high quality of product and on-board service over the years.