Japan Airlines: booking check, check-in and Tokyo connections

How to look up a booking on Japan Airlines

1. 1On jal.co.jp, open the My Booking menu for international flights.
2. 2As a non-member, enter the reservation number or the ticket number.
3. 3Add the flight number and boarding date of one flight in the booking, then the passenger name as booked.
4. 4JMB members can log in instead, but only bookings carrying their mileage number appear.
5. 5For a travel-agency booking, use the same search or ask the agency that issued it.

“Pay later” is not a fare hold you can buy

JAL has no paid product for holding a fare. What it has is “Pay later”: a JAL Mileage Bank member who is logged in can choose it on the Reservation Confirmation screen and keep the booking until the purchase deadline shown on the Complete screen. No fee is mentioned, and the length of that window is not published.

JAL is firm about the deadline. It cannot be extended, and a booking that is not paid by then is cancelled automatically. That suits a member settling dates with family, not an applicant whose Japan or US visa decision is weeks away.

For a visa file, a flight reservation on a JAL routing shows the flight schedule in your name without a membership or a purchase. Japan’s tourist visa checklist asks for a flight schedule rather than a paid ticket (our Japan page quotes it), and the desk’s confirmed hotel bookings cover the hotel part of the itinerary.

Paper boarding passes at Delhi and Bengaluru

JAL’s online check-in opens 24 hours before departure and closes 1 hour before, local time, with bag drop by 60 minutes before international flights. It is not available for itineraries with no JAL-operated flight, and some codeshares follow the operating airline’s times; Finnair-operated flights, for example, open 36 hours ahead.

Delhi and Bengaluru are on JAL’s list of airports where home-print and mobile boarding passes are not available, with the instruction “Please pick up your boarding pass at the counter”. JAL’s Delhi guide adds that a printed paper boarding pass is needed for immigration clearance, and Apple or Google Wallet passes cannot be used either. Check in online if you like, but queue at the counter regardless.

Book more than 24 hours ahead and enter your passport number and other details after purchase, and JAL checks you in automatically 24 hours before departure.

Changing planes in Tokyo on the way to North America

Tokyo is also a way to reach North America, and that is where the transit question comes up. Whether an Indian passport holder can connect airside in Japan without a visa is not confirmed in the official sources we could read, so do not assume it. Japan does issue a transit visa to Indians through VFS Global, which says it “allows people to transit through Japan”; the fee for Indian nationals is INR 50, plus a VFS service charge of INR 800, with at least five working days of processing.

The VFS transit checklist asks for a “Confirmed Travel Booking (Travel itinerary including flight and hotel information)” and a “Copy of visa of the main destination country”. A 2026 news report said the separate transit category was abolished from 1 July 2026, while the VFS page still lists it, so check the current position with VFS before applying.

Two practical points. Haneda to Narita is a change of airport, which always means entering Japan, so keep the inbound and outbound JAL flights at the same Tokyo airport. And the onward country’s visa comes first: the US has no airside transit, and Canada requires a transit or visitor visa from Indians.

JAL’s India flights and the IndiGo codeshare

JAL serves Delhi from Haneda daily and from Narita, and Bengaluru from Narita. The Narita–Delhi route began on 17 January 2026 with a daily Boeing 787-8: JL749 leaves Narita at 20:15 and reaches Delhi at 03:00 the next day, and JL740 leaves Delhi at 04:35 and lands at Narita at 15:10. JAL sells fares to Mumbai, but we found no JAL-operated Mumbai flight.

JAL’s codeshare with IndiGo began on 16 December 2024, putting JAL’s code on IndiGo domestic flights that connect with JAL at Delhi and Bengaluru, 18 Indian destinations at launch. From 15 February 2026 it was widened so that IndiGo’s code also appears on JAL’s Japan–India flights, starting with three routes. A booking from a smaller Indian city can therefore pair an IndiGo flight into Delhi or Bengaluru with a JAL flight to Tokyo on one itinerary.

Japan Airlines questions, answered