00:00:05 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Narita Airport International Terminal 3. It's an international terminal, but yet there's loads and loads of domestic flights here, including Jetstar, Vanilla Air, and this blue track which makes Narita Airport Terminal 3 quite famous. It's like a racing track and it helps you to get to your gates.

00:00:29 John Daub: Hey everybody, I don't often take low-cost carriers, but I'm going to Kochi for a quick trip to fill in some video that I didn't take in another episode of Only in Japan, and I'm just going for a day trip. So I decided to take an LCC, which means low-cost carrier, today just to try it out and show you and talk about is it worth it to take these LCCs. And the answer is I'm not sure, but we're going to go over some of the positives and the negatives to help you make that decision.

00:01:01 John Daub: Now, Terminal 3 in Narita, this is where most of the LCCs, or all of them I think, take off from. It's different than Terminal 1 and 2, not just because of this railroad, the racing track, but also because it's just kind of far away from the train. So if you're coming by train, very inconvenient. You have to walk about 700-800 meters, like a kilometer. But if you're coming by bus, it is more convenient. There is a food court in here. It's quite a nice food court, but there's nothing after you get inside the gates. It's very, very basic. Here's some of the businesses here. Ringer Hut, Freshness Burger, there's some sushi, some udon, and it even tells you here, once you go in, there's no coming out. You're going to be hungry if you don't eat, if you're hungry before then.

00:01:56 John Daub: But the LCCs in Japan, Jetstar, Vanilla Air and Peach Aviation are some of the biggest. There's a new one that's in town. Well, there's one called Spring Airlines Japan, which is a Chinese startup funded, I think, by ANA. Or is it JTB has some stock in that one. So all these LCCs might seem international from outside Japan, but they're backed by JAL or ANA or JTB, Japan Travel Bureau, one way or another. They're kind of Japanese airlines. And it's a way for them to rebrand. Because if you know what you're talking about, I don't need an airline and be able to take advantage of LCC market, which is growing in Japan, but it's been lately kind of stagnant. If ANA has 45% of the market, JAL has 35% of the market and whatever's left over is LCC.

00:02:49 John Daub: It's kind of unique market of LCCs because you can usually get a flight at the last minute at a cheap price. This flight, I'm taking to Kochi, which is on the island of Shikoku. It would take me about seven hours on the train or I could fly there in an hour and a half. So it just makes more sense to just fly. Narita, it takes an hour to get from the city of Tokyo to Narita. And then it takes about another 40 minutes to get to the center of Kochi from the airport, Kochi Ryoma Airport. So in the end, it comes up to about three hours versus maybe seven and a half, eight hours by train to get there. And you know what? It's also a third of the price. So altogether, this is going to cost me 18,000 yen or about $170 round trip to Kochi, which is so cheap. By Shinkansen alone, it's one way to just halfway is like the same price as the whole thing.

00:03:48 John Daub: So there are advantages that the disadvantages is what's on my back. Jetstar allows me only to take in seven kilograms, unless I want to pay more for checked baggage. A lot of people do. A lot of people do take carry-on baggage. I don't because I'm just going for less than 24 hours. But that's one of the biggest drawbacks. The secret to getting around it, put stuff in your pocket. I got a couple of batteries in my pocket and I'm ashamed to say, but put stuff in your pocket and usually you can get away with a little bit less. But I'm probably about five kilograms. I just have my camera and some change of clothes. I have my headphones and a microphone and a tripod under 60 centimeters. So tripods can carry. I got a 45 centimeter tripod. Yeah, that's about it.

00:04:38 John Daub: But I want to show you inside of Terminal 3 a little bit. There's not that much here. There's some money changers, some shops. There's a drugstore. A lot of these brands I've never heard of before. Of course, they have Kit Kats and all the goods here. They do sell some of the gifts inside the terminal. But the choices are very, very limited. There's some green tea confections. You can get some action figures here. But the selections are way, way less than inside.

00:05:32 John Daub: One of the other things about LCCs is that you don't often get miles. So if you're a mile collector like me, I get a lot of ANA and JAL miles. If you upgrade with Jetstar, you might get some miles but I haven't had that pleasure. Now, this is where it goes left to right. You can go right for international and then left for domestic security. I'm going to go through security and then I'm going to show you the gate. So I get to turn off this phone and all the electrical devices. And in about 5 minutes I should be back at the gate. So that means I'm going to say goodbye for a couple of minutes. And then I'll be back on.

00:06:15 John Daub: The people who fly LCCs usually are on a budget just like everybody else. The seats are a little bit narrower. There's no food. There's less services. If you've never flown an LCC before, again, the main airlines for LCC are Jetstar. It's hard to say if Skymark is an LCC. It's undetermined. But Skymark usually is budget, and you can get flights pretty cheap with Skymark. I categorize it as such. The other airlines are Vanilla Air and Peach Aviation in Japan. Now, Vanilla Air goes to mostly resort destinations. And Peach Aviation, they're based in Kansai Airport, which means that it's open to an entirely new passenger group down in another side of Japan. And they are buying Vanilla Air, and the two of them will merge. And I don't know what this is going to do with the market. But after they merge, Peach Aviation might be very close to Jetstar, or they'll be at the top of the LCCs. So we're going to see how that shapes up. In October, the two of them merge.

00:07:47 John Daub: Another LCC that might not be LCC, but it's called Solaseed Air. And they fly mostly to Kyushu. And they also fly to Okinawa. And I've been flying them a couple of times because you can get ANA Miles. Usually, I'll get the same amount of miles with Solaseed as I would for ANA flights for economy. And I kind of like that. Solaseed is a good airline. Jetstar is a good airline. Jetstar, I think, is backed by JAL here in Japan. It's an Australian carrier, but it's backed by JAL. So it's kind of just Japan Airlines' budget. And there's a couple of other airlines' LCCs that might be starting up before the Olympics. But it's still kind of a non-growing top market here in Japan.

00:08:34 John Daub: Now, I'm not allowed to film in here, so I'm going to turn off the camera. If you have any questions, think of them, and I'll be back on in about five.

00:08:40 John Daub: Here we are. Now, you can see this is Terminal 3, very clearly right now. And then over to the left, you can see there's Terminal 2. Some of the international carriers on that side. Remember, we had to make a right or a left. We went to the left, so now we've gone to the domestic, which is this way. And you can already see they're like all LCCs. There's Jetstar. Probably my flight right there. And then there's a Vanilla Air. And we still have to follow this blue track to Gates 161 and 172.

00:09:32 John Daub: Now, at the gate, you saw what it looks like at the entrance of Terminal 3. But at the gate, there really isn't that much here anymore. And to stay underneath the weight, anything that you buy, you're often weighed at the gate. So they will weigh your bag. I've been through this before. I think I was one kilogram over. And so you know what they did? They said that I have to pay. But instead, I just started to put this stuff in my pockets. I said, look, how are you going to charge me for my love handles? Are you going to charge me for my beer gut too? So in the end, I made it okay. Or you could just pay. But if you know you're coming with a lot of luggage, just pay the extra 2,000 yen or $20. And it's a breeze. You don't have to worry about it. Because trying to save a little bit of money can be a massive headache.

00:10:28 John Daub: Now we're entering the gate area for Terminal 3 Domestic, which is, I think, just LCCs. And it's very, very basic compared to the normal airport. It's very basic. This is it. It's just really a little long. But compared to airports in the past, not even close to what Terminal 1 and 2 were. Terminal 3 Domestic is so small. And this is the only shop. This Jetstar shop. And they have some water. And they have some things that you can carry on. But I'm also very hesitant to do that because I don't know if they're going to weigh me. So I'm going to go ask them, are you going to weigh me? But they do have some nice gifts here. Some dorayaki (Japanese bean cake pancakes with red bean paste). I say Japanese because usually Westerners don't like them at all.

00:11:37 John Daub: Those are airplanes. But they shouldn't crash a lot. I hope they're not LCCs. Did you see? Look, it's like flying. Wow. Do it again. Whoa. It's really cool.

00:12:03 John Daub: All right. I'm going to my gate just to see what they're doing. Everyone's looking at me because I'm the only YouTuber on here. What are you going to do? I'm not sure what my gate is. I better find it. Oh, there they are. They're weighing it. That's what I'm talking about. They weigh the bag. I have a fanny pack on. It's very small. If they made you get on a scale, that would be crazy. Oh, that one's going to Sapporo. Let's go take a look at this flight. I like the way they do this. This is the old style where there was no gate that connects to the airplane. You actually have to walk up to the airplane itself. I like that though. It feels like very 1960s.

00:13:14 John Daub: Hey, Simon Zhang. This is my first time seeing Narita Terminal 3. It's quite interesting. Have a good trip. Thank you very much. Yeah, I don't... This is maybe my third or fourth time doing this. Usually, if I go to Kyushu or Shikoku, there's a lot of LCCs that go that way. So, it only pays... It does pay.

00:13:33 John Daub: So, let's go over the question here. The destination for today is Kochi. Oh, there's a Vanilla Air. So, the other LCC has a little shop. It does beat the Shinkansen if you're going a distance. That means to like Kyushu, to Hokkaido, to Shikoku, and to the Sea of Japan side down in like Tottori, Yonago. These are best for airplanes. Okay? For LCCs. If you're going along the main Honshu route or you're going to Niigata or Nagano or maybe up to Tohoku to about Sendai, it doesn't make sense to fly. But it makes sense to fly. It's just close enough where it makes sense to fly because the Shinkansen is so expensive. It's about 16,000 yen. So, it comes up to like $300 round trip to Aomori. But you can get a flight usually for half that. So, it just makes sense to do that.

00:14:30 John Daub: But inside the Terminal 3 domestic, I see that there's some gachapon (capsule toy vending machines). And I think the last time I checked, there was some mamori (protective charms), like something that you can use for a lucky charm in case, I don't know, so your plane doesn't, you know, take a dive. Oh, they changed them all the time. But I thought that was pretty funny. They had something really, they have some real scary ones here. This one's sushi. It's kind of neat. Nothing too interesting. Little cars, Suzuki cars. Some more sushi. There's a little hamster one. Haha, you should get that. Takamatsu. Here's another destination for Jetstar. That's leaving in about an hour and a half from now.

00:15:48 John Daub: My flight boards at 1220. So it won't be too long now. Here come the Jetstar flight attendants. The Jetstar flight attendants are going to be making a pass by. Let's check them out. They've got the orange jackets. Very light in the staff area for that flight. So there's only four flight attendants. I mean, I think there were two and then the other two might have been the pilots. I don't know.

00:16:29 John Daub: If you're having problems, mouse over the screen and click the gear and you can change it to HD. Usually the live streams will be in 720, but sometimes they're in 360, but usually 720. It just depends. I'm at the mercy of the 4G signal. I'm using Docomo. So usually we have a pretty good signal.

00:16:49 John Daub: Mix writes in, go to the Philippines. You'll experience that kind of boarding. Yes. I'd love to go to the Philippines. Kanai and I were talking about going to the Philippines. Just finished a lengthy app for Japanese language school. Wish me luck. Thanks for being an inspiration. Watery JB. Good luck. Good luck on the test. And Mix, we'll see you soon. I know Kanai and I are going to be making our way there to the Philippines sometime soon. I know my friend, if you're watching from the Philippines, my friend, Life Where I'm From, Greg, just put a two-part series on life in the Philippines, which I thought was really interesting. You might want to check it out.

00:17:32 John Daub: And for me, for this trip, LCCs make sense. It's just cheaper. It's faster. And it's convenient. And Narita Terminal 3 is not so convenient. But I go by bus to Narita. And Narita Airport by bus is a lot more accessible than by train, I think. It just depends. Hey, Tyler. Ah, Tyler's in the house. I see that. I always get that hot, hot red burgundy color. Thank you, Tyler. I appreciate that very much.

00:18:10 John Daub: All right, let's go to the end of the line here. And if we have some time, I'll come back and do a gachapon for everybody. Just want to see what we got available on the other side. Actually, I want to see where my gate is. I forgot to check. Oh, this flight's deboarding. It's deboarding, which means... Oh, it's deboarding. Tyler's usually in the house. But when Tyler is in the house, everybody knows. All right, let's go check out. Oh, that's my flight. That's my flight. These are my flight attendants. All right, I should go get my bag weighed. I better go do that. So I guess this is my flight right here. Let's see. I think that's my airplane right there. Does it look okay? Very ready.

00:19:23 John Daub: I'm sure you're wrecking someone's witness relocation program. That's hilarious. I don't know if they're taking Jetstar on witness relocation unless it's... Well, actually, these are all going to the countryside. So very well could be. That's pretty funny. Tyler, you just totally blew up this stream. Thank you, buddy. I'll be eating well tonight. I might do live stream tonight then and then go for dinner. I'll be by myself unless you're in Kochi, but I'll go for dinner and I'll live stream it and I'll be dedicated to Tyler. There you go, buddy. Much appreciated. Actually, I think Tyler might have paid for the entire flight. I'm serious. I think Tyler would have paid for the entire flight. It was 18,000 yen total, which is about $150. Thanks, Tyler. That's funny.

00:20:27 John Daub: All right, that flight's taken off. Down here. Terminal 3 is pretty relaxed, you know? Pretty relaxed, I think. You can see over there there's Terminal 2 and Terminal 1. But it's about a 1-kilometer walk. This is another downside to going to Terminal 3. If you come by train, this is very important to note for everybody who's thinking of taking LCC from Narita. If you're taking the train, it's about a 700 to 1,000-meter walk. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to walk. Because it's accessible by bus, but not by a train station. So none of the trains will stop here in Terminal 3. But the buses stop here first. Just to point that out. If you're taking an LCC to Terminal 3, make sure you take the bus from the city.

00:21:20 John Daub: All right, they're going to go and weigh. I'm going to go weigh my bag now. Hold on a second. Let's see how this weighs. It wears sensible shoes. Barry writes in. That's right. I'm wearing my Keens, which are very nice. Very comfortable. All right, let's go weigh the bag. Thank you so much. Thank you. How much did it weigh? 6.2 kilograms. Thank you. All right. So it was 6.2 kilograms. When are you going to get in? Which way? This way. Up here? This way. Oh, I see. So I'm going to go in this area. Yes, this way. Thank you.

00:22:21 John Daub: So I was 6.2 kilograms. Which is pretty close. The basic ticket for Jetstar is 7 kilograms for carry-on, and that's all the luggage you can bring in. And that's all that I have. The tripod itself is like 2 kilograms. But by the way, tripods, if it's over 60 centimeters, you have to check it in. But mine is compact. Hey, Jose. Hey, John. My son and I were in Tokyo in March, and my son kept asking for us to go to Tokyo. I said, look for you, but you were in Osaka. Oh, that's right. Maybe next time. Sure. I'll probably do more meetups in the summer because the last few months has been really busy.

00:23:05 John Daub: In fact, I'm starting a third Only in Japan channel right now, which is one reason why there hasn't been anything on the main channel for about a month. I've been setting up the new channel for launch in June, which is really exciting. And then we're going to have three channels, four channels, if you include the Only in Japan 360 channel, which is a virtual reality channel, which I haven't updated because it's been demonetized. I can't give you too much information on the new channel. It's top secret, but it's coming in June. And Kanai and I are going to film some of the episodes next week in Kanazawa. I can tell you that. So it's going to be pretty exciting to have a new channel. Why don't I just put it on the other channel? It's always good to have more than one channel if you're a YouTuber. Live streaming was separated from the other channels because people didn't like live streams too much on the main channel. It just made sense to separate them.

00:24:06 John Daub: Any questions on LCC? Do you have any questions on Japan's low-cost carriers? I'll make the stream go on for about 30 minutes and then I'm going to have to cut out. I'm here for you. Is Kanai going to be in the new channel more? Maybe. Yeah, I think so. Kanai will be more in the new channel. Is it cheaper from Narita than Haneda? Ken, excellent question. Is Narita even necessary? The answer is yes. A lot of international passengers might be flying to Haneda because it's more central. But Narita services all of Chiba. There's a lot of people in Chiba. Narita also services Ibaraki. It also services Tokyo. It services this whole area. So although it takes an hour to get from the center of Tokyo to Narita, there's a lot of people who it only takes 15 minutes. The city of Chiba is also pretty big. Haneda services south Tokyo and it services Yokohama and the Kanagawa area. So both of them are needed.

00:25:07 John Daub: Is it cheaper? It's very hard to get a spot at Haneda Airport for airlines, which means that a lot of the LCCs are here in Narita. So the flights are probably cheaper here because it's further out and it's more spacious. Haneda is on an island, so there's not a lot of space. They did do an expansion last year, I believe, but it's still not big enough to take everybody who wants to fly to Japan through Haneda. So Narita has a huge, huge purpose still. And it always will be, I think. It takes about an hour or there's a 1,000 yen bus that leaves from Tokyo Station. I did a live stream on that a couple of months ago.

00:25:56 John Daub: What's the best airline to fly from the U.S. to Japan? ANA. That's so easy, Kevin. ANA is the best airline. And JAL is a close second. And all the U.S. carriers, I would say no. I've had friends say about lost baggage, bad services, having to pay for alcohol, things like this. The U.S. carriers do that and the domestic carriers don't. Sorry, the Japanese carriers have free drinks and the services are so much better. I used to like JAL more than ANA, but now I like ANA more than JAL. It just goes back and forth. I really don't think there's a big difference between the two. But ANA is more competitive. I think ANA is right now doing better. And you can see why. I think the services are a little bit better on ANA than JAL right now. But Jetstar is backed by JAL.

00:26:53 John Daub: How do LCCs handle handicapped? Not too good, actually. There's a situation in Amami Oshima, which is down in Kagoshima near Okinawa, where a passenger had to crawl onto the plane. Because if you couldn't get onto the plane on your own, then you couldn't board the plane. That's what they said. This created a huge scandal domestically in Japan. And let's just say that that airline had some big troubles. This is from, I think, from Osaka to Amami Oshima in 2017. You can Google it. Poor passenger who's disabled had to crawl onto the plane. So the LCCs had a dip last year or two years ago. And I think because the Olympics is coming, you're going to see it going back up again. But it kind of stabilized because there are just more airlines and more routes. So ANA, JAL have opened up more routes. Skymark has increased as well. Solaseed is here. Solaseed is ANA's subsidiary, which is not exactly a low-cost carrier, but it's sometimes cheaper. And you get ANA Miles. That flies to Kyushu. So more routes have opened. So LCCs have kind of gone down. That's why Vanilla Air and Peach Aviation, two of the biggest LCCs here, are combining in October to make one, I guess, Peach dominant.

00:28:08 John Daub: And Peach is cool because they have that, you know, that hot pink color to their planes. I bet, you know, the ladies like to fly that a little bit more. Do Japanese LCCs at least hand out three bags of edamame or peanuts? No. No. They have a tent. I don't think so. In fact, I don't even think you get drinks. I've never gotten a drink unless I upgraded. I think it was like if I checked in a bag, I got a plus system. I was in the plus level and I got a drink complimentary. Usually you have to pay for drinks on board. It's crazy.

00:28:41 John Daub: PVG is not on the speakers for Jetstar. I'm a flight attendant for Qantas. Qantas, who started Jetstar and still owns 30%... That's very true. So Qantas and JAL are some of the owners of Jetstar here. And I gotta tell you, Qantas is like one of the best airlines in the world. It's very, very good. And JAL is very, very good. So Jetstar is strict, but good. I have never had a problem with Jetstar, but I've never checked in a bag with Jetstar either. So you have to pay for everything. And I think Ryanair was the first one who started these LCCs. Ryanair really innovated and they made money, which is incredible, through this years and years ago. And now that kind of put train travel in Europe on a decline. I used to take these long night trains in Europe, but they're kind of gone because of low cost carriers all over Europe.

00:29:41 John Daub: Okay, great questions. I'm not renting a car this time. I'm only there for less than 24 hours. I'm doing some video and I'm getting back home to Tokyo. I got too much stuff to do, including a main channel episode, which is coming next week. Maybe tomorrow. It's on micro-sushi, which is going to be an interesting topic. Very interesting topic. Guys, check out tonight. I might do another live stream from a restaurant in Kochi and share something from the city of Kochi with you. And tomorrow I'm filming the Sunday Market. If you're in Kochi, I'll be there. You can find me. I'll be the guy holding a camera, walking back and forth, aimlessly filming interviews about people who've been at Japan. I'm going to be at Japan's oldest market in Kochi.

00:30:21 John Daub: All right, guys, I gotta move. Looks like they're going to be calling a flight. The gate's getting open. So have a good day, good night, wherever you are in the world. I really appreciate the support. Thank you, Tyler. See you guys on the other side. See you in Kochi. Beautiful day in Japan.