Flying ELAL

A couple week ago I had to change my ticket last minute and instead of my usual nighttime (either LY001 on ELAL at 1:00 a.m. or CO86 at 11:00 PM) I had to take a day flight. Luckily I opted or Continental’s 11:25 flight instead of ELAL. Why?

I rarely watch movies on flights. In fact in the past 10 years of travelling I can probably name all the movies I have seen. By the time the wheels are up I have already popped my Ambian and getting a good nights sleep. But flying during the day is a whole different story. Even if I got a few hours nap there is still a good deal of the flight that I am awake so I started flipping through the  TV and movie options that are available on Continental. Turns out there are are about 70 movies and many more TV shows to chose from. I had no problem killing 5 hours on the flight with 3 movies. On ELAL I would have at best had 8-10 movies to choose from.

There are many benefits (and some draw backs) to the Continental entertainment system compared to ELAL and I will go through the details in another post soon.

As news agencies in Israel reported early this morning, ELAL flight 027 to Newark had to make an emergency landing back in Tel-Aviv shortly after takeoff. Thank G-d the pilots made a safe landing and all passengers aboard the flight were OK. Apparently there was a technical problem with one of the wheels and the flight had to circle for hours to wait for daylight and dumped fuel before making the landing.

As someone who experienced first hand the need to make an emergency landing I know what the passengers were going through. When making the final approach and seeing all the lights, fire engines and ambulances lined up on the runway one realizes that you are hopeless to do anything other then rely on the experience and expertise of the pilots.

In situations like this there is certainly no one other then ELAL pilots that I would want at the head of the aircraft.

I am not a big fan of in flight duty free. First, I find the prices to be consistently higher then buying in the airport. Second, I hate being disturbed on the plane and I barely put up with the food service. The duty free cart is just one annoying thing we can do without. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be stopping on any airline any time soon. (I was once told ,but have not been able to confirm, that the flight crew gets a big commission from the sales of duty free).

Given that duty free is here to stay I thought I would take a look at the offerings on both Continental and ELAL and do a little price comparison. I am only going to compare identical products in the liquor and tobacco sections

Chivas Regal 12 Year Old Premimum Scotch Whisky:
ELAL – $45
Continental – $37

Johine Walker Blue Label 750 ml:
ELAL- $165
Continental – $142

Remy Martin VSOP Cognac 1 Liter
ELAL – $60
Continental – $55

Grey Goose Vodka 1 Liter
ELAL $46
Continental – $35

Marlboro Box (10 Packs)
ELAL – $39
Continental – $31

As you can see ELAL is consistently higher priced! I didn’t go through the whole product catalogs of both airlines (ELAL has a much larger catalog) but I have no reason to assume these products are not representative of the pricing differences across the board.

I did a quick Internet search and found the first link I clicked on for Marlboro Box 10 Pack gave me a price of $21. I am very skeptical of Duty Free in general but in the case of ELAL clearly you can do better buying elsewhere.