Review: JAL Sakura lounge in Okinawa Naha Airport

This is our review of Japan Airlines’ Sakura business class lounge in Okinawa Airport.

My recent trip to Japan to review JAL also took me to the small southern island of Okinawa, where I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Okinawa. On my way back to Tokyo, I was surprised to find a Sakura lounge, operated by Japan Airlines, in the terminal.

We don’t normally review regional airport lounges but I thought you might be interested to see what JAL offers at its outstations.

The lounge has two sides: the Sakura business class side as well as the Diamond Premier side for status members.

JAL Sakura lounge access requirements

JAL’s Sakura lounges are for business class passengers, but you don’t need to be flying JAL to gain access. Here are the full eligibility reqiurements:

• JAL First Class, business class and premium economy passengers
• Any other oneworld business class passengers, including British Airways, Finnair, Cathay Pacific etc
• Anyone with oneworld Emerald or Sapphire status (the equivalent of British Airways Silver)

That said, Okinawa Airport is a small airport mostly serving the domestic Japanese market with a handful of international flights to/from other cities in Asia. There are not that many oneworld flights beyond those that JAL operates.

The lounge is open from 6:30am until 9pm, seven days a week.

Inside the Sakura lounge, Okinawa

A lot of JAL lounges appear to have direct access from fast track security lanes, although I’ve never figured out how to access these. Fortunately, there were no queues for the normal lanes and I whizzed through before turning left and following signs to the JAL Sakura lounge.

Once you’ve had your boarding pass scanned by the front desk you head down a small wood panelled maze of a corridor with lockers and telephone booths you can use:

The corridor then opens up – quite unexpectedly – into a rather nice, modern room with windows:

The lounge isn’t huge, with space for perhaps 50 guests, but it was almost entirely empty when I arrived. I think most regular Japanese passengers know they don’t have to arrive quite so early for a domestic flight.

On the left you have some bar-style seating as well as a row of seats along the window. Each seat has its own easily accessible power outlets which makes life very easy. (There is no real view, as it overlooks the service area of the terminal rather than the runway.)

This area is also home to the lounge’s limited food and drink options. This is as good as it gets:

As with JAL’s other domestic lounges, including in Tokyo, food seems limited to some rice snacks whilst drinks include tea, coffee, beer and some juices:

There is more space on the other side of the lounge, which is windowless. There are more shared tables as well as armchairs around the room, which is split into two:

and

That, pretty much, is it. There are some toilets inside the lounge with an attendant who cleans them very rigorously, but I didn’t see any showers.

Conclusion

Popping into JAL’s domestic lounges in Tokyo had set my expectations for Okinawa, but I’m pleased to say I was pleasantly surprised. The Sakura lounge in Okinawa is much more modern, with lovely bronze wood panelling, some intriguing local artwork and lots of seating with dedicated power outlets.

Food and drink was basic, as per JAL’s other domestic lounges, but it seems that’s somewhat of a trend in Japan and I wasn’t expecting any better.

It did get quite busy just before my flight but there was still seating available, and I imagine it cleared out again once we started boarding.

You can find out more about the lounge on JAL’s website here.