Great news for travellers planning holidays to Japan: Japan Airlines will begin operating more flights out of Melbourne starting at the end of March.

The national airline of Japan now operates three services per week between Tullamarine and Tokyo; however, this will increase to four flights per week as of the end of the northern winter IATA scheduling period (26 March 2023) onwards.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between 26 March and 1 July, Flight JL774 will depart Melbourne for Tokyo Narita at 7:20 am and arrive at 4:20 pm.

Flight JL773 will leave Narita on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays at 6.20 pm and land in Melbourne at 5.40 am the following morning.

Then, beginning on 2 July and continuing until 28 October, both JL774 and JL773 will depart Melbourne on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

These timings were made public in the airline’s recently released schedule.

JAL will operate the services with a Boeing B787-8 aircraft.

The regular Sydney services (JL051/052) provided by Japan Airlines will remain unchanged.

Recently, Qantas announced that it would be the first airline to connect Brisbane and Tokyo Haneda, while Virgin Australia announced that it would be the first airline to provide service between Cairns and Haneda, beginning in June 2023.