I flew to Tel Aviv in Israel from London Heathrow Airport on El Al Israel Airlines‘ new Dreamliner aircraft. The flight duration is 4 hours 40 minutes to Tel Aviv and 5 hours 30 minutes on the way back to London.
The ticket to Tel Aviv from Heathrow (3,586 km) was £320 return which I booked in May 2018, seven months in advance.
El Al Flight LY318 was scheduled to depart from Heathrow Terminal 4 at 2220 on a Saturday but got slightly delayed by the various additional security checks the El Al security crew carried out.
World’s Most Secure Airline
Even myself (not that I am special) – was randomly selected for an additional security check. They went through my bag and asked me lots of questions. I was glad I arrived at the gate an hour before departure as the security checks took up more than half an hour for me alone!
Anyhow, I always wanted to know what it is like to be questioned by border security, so I got it now! Plus, EL Al is the world’s most secure airline, so I suppose better be safe than sorry!
Solaris Traveller Flight Video
Getting a Middle Seat
Finally when I got on board I sat down at seat 27F which was in the middle of the middle row. The seat layout was 3x3x3 and because I booked a “Lite” ticket it meant I could not change seats. Also, with the Lite ticket I could only take on-board 8kg of baggage, so I ended up bringing hand luggage only.
The new Dreamliner looked amazing inside, with ambient lighting and comfortable seats. My favourite part of the plane was the huge flat screen TV, which was the size of a large Ipad I would say.
Touch Screen TV
The touch screen TV had dozens of programs, newly released movies and a plethora of other things.
For the first time I wished the flight was a bit longer so I could watch some more movies!
In the end I picked Sicario, The Day of the Soldado which is my new favourite movie.
Food On-Board El Al Israel Airlines
Fortunately El Al provides food even with the Lite ticket and everything on board is Kosher by default so I did not need to pre-order.
If you are mega kosher or have some other dietary requirements you can pre-order but I did not see the need.
The menu was a tray full of stuff, like a small bowl of lettuce and olive salad, another bowl of fruit salad, a large slice of chocolate coconut cake and my favourite: the pastrami sandvich!
Best Pastrami Sandwich Ever!
In all honesty this was the best on-board meal I’ve ever had, and I am not even getting paid to say this! OK, just thinking now, the Aeroflot flight to Moscow also served pretty good food too!
By the way, I paid for my ticket, this is not a promotional blog post!
Anyhow, back to my flight food review!
The sandwich was mega soft and the meat inside was very tasty, plus the mustard and pickles just made it the perfect midnight meal!
I love a pastrami sandwich anyway, so it was great to get this. I could have of course picked the chicken sandwich, but I wanted the beef.
Hermolis Kosher Food Suppliers
What I was surprised about was that the food was prepared by Hermolis, which is a kosher kitchen in London.
Whenever I fly nowadays I pre-order kosher food and invariably every airline departing from the UK serves Hermolis, no matter which airline I’ve flown with.
I flew to Johannesburg with South African Airlines, to Chicago, Tampa and Miami on BA, to Atlanta on Delta and Bangkok on Eva Air and they all served Hermolis!
The difference is this: the El Al meal must have been a premium package because it actually tasted good!
The Other Flights
The other flights served the usual prepackaged, microwaveable stuff and they normally tasted pretty awful. Truth be told, I only enjoyed them a couple of times but I sort of always hoped the next one would be nice.
This time on the El Al flight I decided to not pre-order and I did pretty well with that!
The sandvich bread was soft and fluffy and the meat and pickles super tasty.
The kosher food on BA from Miami to London was actually so disgusting I did not even finish it and what I ate from it ended up giving me a sore stomach!
The last time I flew to Tel Aviv was on BA and I paid about the same amount of money for that ticket and I can tell you the food on El Al was far better!
Also, the entertainment offering was much much better on El Al and the seats were so nice and comfy.
Poor Sound System On-board
The only thing I would say about the on-board TV on El Al is that the sound system is pretty shoddy! I plugged in the headset provided in-flight and they simply didn’t work!
When I pushed it in all the way, only one side played the sound and when I pulled it halfway out it was stereo but crackling! So I decided to try my own headset with just the one prong and it did the trick!
Clearly, the two-pronged El Al headsets are very poor quality!
Fortunately, if you plug your own one-pronged earphones into the right hand-side plug under the screen it will play the sound stereo just fine!
El Al Airlines Legroom
The legroom on this El Al flight was large enough even in Economy – when I reclined the seat I could stretch out properly and fell asleep straight away! I normally bring my own earplugs and eye masks on every flight and travel in a hoody, so that blocks out the light properly.
I think I was even snoring as I woke up to it! Now that must have been real loud given that I had my earplugs in!
Recycling On-board El Al
What surprised me was that the El Al crew did not just throw all the rubbish in one bag like they do on most airlines but they actually recycled the trash! The El Al staff put the cups, plastic, trays and paper trash in separate places and I assume at the end they chucked them in the recycling bins on the ground (hopefully!).
No Flights on Shabbat
One thing you need to remember though is that El Al doesn’t fly on Shabbat which means the last flight out of London is on Friday early afternoon between 2-3PM and the first flight out on Saturday is after 10PM.
Anyway, I can live with that and good job there is an airline that is not simply chasing profits but also has principles!
The flight was completely full anyway and nobody complained about anything at all.
We landed on time in Tel Aviv, so I think we must have had backwind to help us catch up on the delayed departure.
I must have looked very suspicious because I was again selected for a random security check and the guy made me pronounce the name of the town where I was born!
I did it but I told him to prounounce it after me which of course he failed!
Well, that’s all for now, if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know!