Chances are with their SAN flight they are able to fly pax on their NRT-SFO and NRT-LAX flights and then book them on AA to SAN. That’s a lot harder with BOS so it gets an aircraft substitution while SAN gets cancelled.
JAL is now looking to use 777 to SAN as well. Article in San Diego UT said with the uncertainty of 787 service resuming, officials are studying the feasibility of using a 777 for NRT SAN service. They said that they want to take care of future bookings and also realize that there will be restrictions on the amount of passengers and cargo that can be loaded for this flight. The article said a decision should be made by this weekend on the use of the 777. It should be no problem for ground handling, AA already services the daily BA 777 to London.
Japan Airlines is planning to start using the Boeing 772/ER to SAN on Jan. 30. The schedule looks weird though, so I’m not sure how it will turn out. At this time, it looks like maybe 2x/week. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was changed.
Yes, absolutely correct! There will be restrictions for JAL’s 777 due not only to SAN’s runway length (~9400 ft) but also the “high” terrain and usable runway length. For you or anybody else that’s interested, Wikipedia’s SAN article has some great info.
Latest for NRT SAN on JAL is that they will operate 777 3 days a week, Mon, Wed, and Fri. Sunday has been dropped, presumeably because of availability of aircraft and crews plus operations turnarounds. This is per San Diego UT and JAL spokesperson. Schedule was originally supposed to go 7 days a week in March, not optimistic unless 787 battery issues are resolved. Time frames for 777 flights same as 787 flight times.
