My wife and I took a long weekend to Tokyo over the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ve done this in the past so I can go shopping for Star Wars while Pam looks for Lilo & Stitch items all over Tokyo. During the trip will filled several boxes with vintage and modern finds from places like Nakano Broadway, Tokyo Disney, Star Cases, and Akihabara, but those are stories for another time.
On the way back home, we arrived at Tokyo’s Narita airport and headed towards our gate. It was one of those weird situations where the first several gates were just past security, but of course weren’t for our flight. And then another quarter mile walk revealed another gate, and then a long walk, and another gate, etc. It was getting comical and soon became clear as we passed dozens of ANA Airlines gates and planes that if there was a bright center to Narita airport, our gate would be the “farthest from” (Dave Tree owes me for that plug). As we approached our gate we were stunned to see that we would be flying in ANA’s R2-D2 jet! R2-D2 it is you, it is you!
ANA has licensed several Star Wars themed planes in their fleet: one with BB-8, another with C-3PO, and one with R2-D2. ANA randomly assigns these planes to routes across their network, and the planes are used for many domestic and international destinations. It is impossible to book these in advance because they keep the Star Wars plane schedule secret from passengers so that it remains a surprise.
At first, I thought we would just get the thrill of riding in a Star Wars decorated plane, but what I didn’t know is that the whole experience is Star Wars themed. As I boarded the plane with my R2-D2 roller bag, the flight attendant congratulated for bringing matching luggage onto the plane. She completely warmed up to us as she could see we were big Star Wars fans as we began to take photos of everything in sight.
Star Wars music is played as passengers enter and leave the plane. The in-flight catalog has special duty free Star Wars items only available on the flight.
The head rests are all R2-D2 themed. During the coffee breaks, the flight attendants put on R2-D2 aprons and distributed coffee in R2 cups.
Towards the end of the trip, our friendly flight attendant dropped off a special gift bag she had prepared for us with lots of R2-D2 swag.
I’ve yet to hear from any fellow Star Wars fan who have been lucky enough to fly in an ANA Star Wars plane, but it was quite awesome. Now to book some flights to Japan to get onto the C-3PO and BB-8 planes!
Guest article by Gus Lopez
Gus is one of the worlds foremost Star Wars collectors, amassing an unbelievable collection of cast and crew items, props from the films and food items. He has written for the Star Wars Insider and runs the Star Wars Collectors Archive.
