my first flight to spain
Hello and welcome to my trip to spain!
About the flight
I've purchased the tickets 2 months before the flight. The price with aireuropa was about 269$ for TLV-MAD-TLV sector including trolley and a small cabin bag onboard. Iberia has a much comfortable flight hour on the return flight (4:10PM while my flight was deaprted at 8:45AM) but it was expensive as 130$ more than Air Europa's flights. El Al was much expensive and the prices was about 500$ per tickets, using boring 737 for both directions (My flight from Madrid to Tel Aviv was onboard a brand new 787 dreamliner.
So I booked the ticket via Air Europa's website, and got directly the ticktes to the mail.
AIR EUROPA'S OPERTAION IN ISRAEL
For several years, Air Europa offered charter flight from TLV to BCN and PMI on board Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Air Europa started to operate regualr flight between Madrid and Tel Aviv in 2015, in order to down the prices on TLV-MAD route and to connect pax from TLV to some popular destantions in America like MIA, EZE, GRU, GIG, LIM etc. The route started with only 3 weekly flights onboard B738 aircraft and today the airline operates 9 weekly flight on MAD-TLV route by this hours:
MAD 8:45 AM - TLV 2:20 PM 788/789 All the week except Sat
MAD 11:45 PM - TLV 5:15 AM 738 Sun, Tue, Sat
TLV 4:05 PM - MAD 8:15 PM 788/789 All the week except Sat
TLV 8:00 AM - MAD 12:20 PM 738 Sun, Mon, Wed
Also, the airline will start flying from Malaga (AGP) to TLV from April 2020, 2 flights per week onboard 738 aircraft.
It's pretty nice that Air Europa operates 787 aircrafts on 4.5 hours flight. To comapre, Iberia operates an A332 on this route and El Al operates B739 on this route.
The day of the flight
Our flight is on flightradar24:
I arrived to Terminal 3 in TLV airport at 5:35AM, I had only carry-on baggage so I didn't need to go to the check-in counter. This is the area of the check-in counters in TLV:
After passing the security chcek and the passport control I went to check if my airplane arrived, and it was right:
SPOTTING AT TLV AIRPORT
British Airways Boeing 777-200ER will depart to London (LHR), UK:
Lufthansa Airbus A321 will depart to Munich (MUC), Germany:
Aeroflot Airbus A321 will depart to Moscow (SVO), Russia:
Trade Air Airbus A320 (operated by Israir) will depart to Tivat (TIV), Montenegro:
View of C and D gates:
It's boarding time!
The queue for our flight, It was quite long:
Boarding on a glass jetbridge:
Our plane has a special sticker of Argentina:
New Sky interior on this 3 years old Boeing 737-800, reg EC-MJU:
Business Class:
My seat for the next 5 hours, Seat 5A:
Legroom was great and better than the rows at the rear of the plane:
The seat has a big tray table, no power outlets offered:
A view of the cabin:
tIME TO FLY!
View of the wing, I must say that I love the new livery of Air Europa!
Passing near the new A359 of Cathay Pacific:
My flight is on flightradar!
Taxi to runway 26:
Take off!
Israel Coastline:
Cabin after take off:
For flights under 6 hours, Air Europa offers BOB service, and I had to pay 3 EUR for a bottle of water:
Passing Crete, Greece after 1 hour and 15 minutes of flying:
After passing Crete the flight was stucking till the landing in Madrid:
Passing Tunisia, Air Europa is the only airlines that flying over Tunisia, comparing to other carries that fly to Israel:
Lavatories were Ok but a little bit small than regular ones:
View of the cabin after 3 hours of flying:
It was cloudy outside after passing Tunisia:
I bought a can of Coke:
Passing Ibiza Island, Spain:
Entering into the spanish coastine after 4 hours of flying:
It was time to descent into MAD airport. I took some pictures from the descent:
Final approach!
Touch down at MAD after 4:48 hours flight:
Taxing to Terminal 3 at MAD, The taxi was long and took 20 min:
Reaching our gate at Terminal 3 near Embarer E190 of Air Europe Express, landed from Ibiza (IBZ), Spain:
The airport workers hadn't sucssesed to connect the jetbridge to the aircraft, so we needed to wait for 40 minutes until buses will take us to the terminal. We had to exit from the rear door:
Ryanair Boeing 737-800 landed from Krakow (KRK), Poland:
Air Europa Boeing 737-800 with Skyteam livery landed from Paris (ORY), France:
Air Europa Boeing 787-8 landed from Miami (MIA), FL, USA:
Thanks for sharing.
A good flight, but not convinced by the BOB service for such a long flight...