This was my experience first time flying ZipAir from Narita to Manila, Philippines since their price was just as affordable (if not cheaper) than Cebu Pacific and PAL. Plus I like that I get to arrive early afternoon in Manila. Zipair is the newest budget airline fleet owned by Japan Airlines.
As of July 2023, Zipair started servicing fights from Manila- Tokyo Narita and Vice versa. They also have flight services leaving from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok. They fly out 1 a day in the morning from Narita- Manila and 1 flight out of Manila arriving at Narita at 8:00 PM. However this schedule can change as the influx of tourist entering Japan has increased over the last few months.
From Narita Airport you fly out from Terminal 1 in Narita and land in Terminal 1 at Manila Airport.
For my one way flight to Manila I paid about $200 USD or PHP 11,2000 October conversion 2023 rates. This included my meal and extra bags.
The reason Zipair is a budget airline compare to its parent company Japan Airlines is because, they dont have an entertainment system on the place. The seating for “first class” is just the basic lie down flat seat which you will pay extra for but you get the same services in economy. You need to pre order your food and pay for your check in bags and additional carry on weight. Pretty much every part of the service is ala-carte.
I paid for a package that included 1 check in bag and my carry on. I prebought my lunch set for a 4.5 hour flight, and I already knew I would be carrying more for my carry-on, I ended up buying the add-on extra weight package, this came in handy since they combined the weight of my purse and rolling bag.
However once you have checked in your bags and finish with immigration, you are free to shop in the Duty Free store and not worry them counting those are extra weight to charge.
Since you dont get personal entertainment on this flight, they compensate by providing free WIFI. This was surprisingly fast. You can do basic like watch and stream in youtube, instagram or browse your socail media pages and a few email. However making calls or video calls seems to be blocked.
Messaging services like Line, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Apple’s iMessage are fully functional so if your plane encounters any delay midair, you can inform your pick up party via those mediums.
The only downside to my experience was the food. I got myself a Pork Katsudon sandwich which is something I have eaten before in Japan and US. This one, they overdid the sauce and came too citrusy for my taste. The food is a hit or miss depending on what you order. but then this IS a budget airline so some amenities may fare different even with the basic economy of other airlines say PAL or Japan Airlines. The only other issue is the website interface is not as user friendly as I wish it to be so took me a few tries to put in my bag -add ons and seat selection
But all in all this is a wonderful budget saver and has still great customer service, something I would recommend for budget travelers without compromising too much on service. The best features in my opinion is the fast free WIFI and the ability to pay a much smaller fee for adding extra weight to your check-in or carry on.
The Adventures Of Ms. Circumstance 