While Fuji Dream Airlines has the most flights out of Nagoya Komaki Airport, it is a Shizuoka-born airline and operates quite a few flights out of Mt. Fuji Shizuoka Airport. With my wife being from Shizuoka, I decided to finally try the airline on our most recent trip to visit her parents. During the week-long stay in Shizuoka, I also did a quick trip to Osaka to tour the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.
Continue reading to see what planning this trip was like and what reviews and other articles you can expect to be published over the coming weeks.
Flights
During the summer schedule, Fuji Dream Airlines serves six destinations out of Shizuoka: Sapporo New Chitose, Sapporo Okadama, Izumo, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima. All of those are served once a day with the exception of Fukuoka which gets four daily rotations.
Initially, I thought of doing a simple roundtrip to Fukuoka or flying to a place like Izumo and getting back using a combination of JAL to Tokyo and a bullet train ride. In the end, however, I decided to make things a bit more interesting and book the following using 15,400 JAL miles and paying 390 yen (approx. 3 USD) in taxes:
- JH171 from Shizuoka to Sapporo Okadama
- JH146 from Fukuoka to Shizuoka
I was hoping one of the flights would be operated by an E170 and the other by an E175 but they both ended up being operated by the E175. As such, I will only review the first one while briefly pointing out the aspects of the service that were different on the second flight.
It’s worth noting that the Shizuoka to Sapporo Okadama flight is the longest one in Fuji Dream’s network and is also the only jet aircraft-operated flight serving Sapporo Okadama airport.
While planning this trip, I also decided to go to Seoul using ANA miles. Thanks to ANA’s generous routing rules, I was able to tack on flights that would get me from Sapporo to Fukuoka to the ticket to Seoul essentially free of charge. Out of a couple of different options, I decided to go through Nagoya Centrair as some new facilities there joined Priority Pass recently.
After changing my flight from Sapporo to Nagoya to an earlier one a few days before departure, I ended up taking the following economy class flights:
- NH712 from Sapporo New Chitose to Nagoya Centrair on an ANA 737-800
- 7G65 from Nagoya Centrair to Fukuoka on a Starflyer A320-200
As I reviewed both of the aircraft in the past and not much has changed since then, I won’t be reviewing these two flights.
Lounges
While Shizuoka airport is very compact and there are only a handful of flights a day, there still is a credit card lounge. The lounge – called Your Lounge – is small and simple but I will review it in detail.
I won’t be reviewing the ANA Lounge that I visited at Sapporo New Chitose since I reviewed it in the past and not much has changed.
At Nagoya Centrair, I visited Premium Lounge Centrair 2 – one of the credit card lounges. While I reviewed the Premium Lounge Centrair next to it, I will be writing a separate review of the “2” lounge as well. Additionally, I had a chance to try The Pike Brewing Restaurant & Craft Beer Bar and Kutsurogi Dokoro – a restaurant and a spa/bath at the airport that recently joined Priority Pass. I will be writing about those too.
Lastly, at Fukuoka Airport, I decided to skip visiting a lounge and waited in the gate area instead.
Accommodation
The one night on this trip that I had away from my wife’s parents’ house was in Nagoya. With a fairly late arrival at Centrair and a plan to take aircraft photos from early morning the next day, I looked for a hotel at/near the airport.
Since I reviewed the Four Points by Sheraton, Toyoko Inn, and TUBE Sq Capsule Hotel in the past, this time I decided to stay at the Comfort Hotel adjacent to the terminal. Being accessible from the terminal using a covered walkway, it turned out to be a solid option for a quick overnight stay at the airport. At 8,000 yen (approx. 60 USD), the hotel was reasonably priced too.
I will review the Comfort Hotel Central International Airport in full shortly.
Other
To get from Tokyo to Shizuoka and back, we took the Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train.
I also took the bullet train to Kyoto and back from Shin-Osaka on my side trip to Osaka Kansai airport. While I won’t be writing about those rides, I will write a brief review of the Haruka express train that connects Kyoto/Osaka with Kansai Airport.
The sole purpose of the side trip to Osaka was, as mentioned in the introduction, to tour the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.
This aircraft, a former FedEx MD-10, has been reconfigured into an ophthalmic teaching hospital. The aircraft is currently in Japan where it was shown to the press and to the project’s partners. From here, it will continue to Vietnam in May. I will be writing a detailed article about the aircraft.
Summary
Within a span of a few days, this trip took me across Japan’s six largest metropolitan areas.
Starting at home in Tokyo in the largest metropolitan area, I then went to the fifth largest Shizuoka-Hamamatsu metropolitan area. From there, I flew to Sapporo, the sixth largest one. Then I went to Fukuoka which is in the fourth largest Fukuoka-Kitakyushu metropolitan area. First, I stopped in Nagoya which is part of the third-largest Chukyo metropolitan area, though. Lastly, I took a side trip to Kansai Airport in the second-largest Keihanshin metropolitan area.
While doing so, I had a chance to fly with Fuji Dream Airlines for the first time, peak onboard the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital MD-10, and review a few different lounges, etc., resulting in a fun trip.
