I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive the airline for being named “peach” but using pinks and purples as their palette. But I suppose that’s a small crime to consider in grand scheme of things, particularly with the pleasant flight experience I had overall.
After a short night’s sleep I was off to the LCC terminal at Kansai International Airport, a short bus ride from the main building, to check in for my flight on Peach Airlines to Fukuoka. Much like the LCC terminal at Narita it was, essentially, a giant shed. Unlike Narita, however, the awesome food court was missing.
I was again unable to check in at a kiosk thanks to booking an exit row. And, again, I was too early to go through security so I was left sitting in the stark hall for about 45 minutes. At least the wifi was free and I found a power outlet.
Once through security there was one restaurant and shop, an upgrade from the night before, as well as plenty of space to sit. Fortunately I wasn’t there for long, however. Boarding was soon called and we funneled out from the main waiting room to a door and then a walk across the apron to board the plane. I’m a big fan of that type of boarding, so long as the weather is nice. I’m not so convinced Osaka is always as beautiful as it was the day of my flight.
No priority boarding on this flight, not that it matters much. Roughly no one had carry-on bags on any of the domestic flights I took so there was no jostling for bin space on board. I settled in to my exit row (and the significant difference in leg room between that and a regular seat) and looked over the menu for what I might order for breakfast.
That proved to be a mistake.
The crew walked up and down the aisle holding up the menu cards that were also in the seat back. Nothing was said but if you wanted to order a meal or drink it was pretty clear you just asked. I did, only to find out that the options I wanted were not catered. I think it might be because we were on a domestic flight rather than an international service but it was still disappointing.
Arrival into Fukuoka is impressive as the airport is RIGHT in the heart of the city. We came in off the water at a relatively low altitude and plopped down in a sea of LCC liveries.
Wheels down in Fukuoka. This airport is very much in the heart of the city. #wandrjplcc #avgeek #paxex #transportals #FUK 🇯🇵✈️🤓 pic.twitter.com/EusHdUiXyr
— Seth Miller (@WandrMe) November 1, 2017
Plus, only two stops on the subway (station in the terminal basement) to get to downtown. It is hard to beat that for convenience.
Scoring the Peach Airlines experience:
Buying tickets: 5/5
Easily handled online and everything worked just fine.
Check-in/preflight: 3/5
Loses points for the short check-in window and needing to find a human.
On-board: 3/5
Great space (in the exit row) and polite crew. No IFE/C but none expected. Not having the meals from the menu was no fun.
Overall: 3/5
Good product, really, but I was surprised by the no food thing. If I’d planned better for that I’d probably score it higher.
More from my Japanese LCC Adventure
- The Japanese LCCs: Building an Adventure
- The Japanese LCCs: Vanilla Air
- First Cabin: Casual Nudity and a Capsule Hotel
- The Japanese LCCs: Peach Airlines
- Exploring Fukuoka: But why??
- The Japanese LCCs: StarFlyer
- The Japanese LCCs: Air Asia Japan
- The Japanese (non) LCCs: Japan Air Lines
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FUK is great, unless you’re taking an international flight. It requires a longish shuttle bus to get to/from the domestic one, as it’s on the opposite side of the airport.
I was in Osaka around the same time. You definitely lucked out on weather. We arrived Oct 27th to Tokyo and were promptly greeted by remnants of a typhoon which brought 2 days of very heavy rain. Oct 30th and on were absolutely gorgeous weather days, at least in central Honshu.