15 reviews
Hello and welcome to this flight report about a flight from TLV to PFO.
I booked this flight on Elal's website, but in fact this was a Sundor (a charter company, subsidiary of Elal) and operated by SmartWings, thus the airline is Smartwings, but the flight number is Elal one.
I arrived to the airport 3 hours before my flight.
The entrance to terminal 3:
Inside the terminal:
Since I flew only with trolley and small handbag, I skipped the check in counters and went to W zone in terminal 3 for passengers who traveling only with hand baggage.
I finished the security questioning process in less than 5 minutes and went to the hand bag screening area:
This process also went very fast this time!
In 5 minutes I completed the hand baggage screening, as well as passport control.
I made my way to the duty free area:
Elal aircraft in the gate (Boeing 737-900ER, 4X-EHD):
And some Elal Boeing 737-800 (I think it's 4X-EKB):
Almost arrived to the duty free…
To sum it up, in 12 minutes I finished all the security processes! Well done TLV airport.
I went to the electric store in the duty free (Shekem electric):
I found it pretty strange that you have an electric shop in the airport, I never saw similar shops in any airport.
When I finished in this store, I went to the dining area.
And of course, those annoying tiny dots on the windows:
And an expensive cup of coffee :)
Even though it was Thursday, the dining area wasn't full and I could find a place to seat very easily:
More photos of the duty free area:
James Richardson duty free shop:
I went again to the food court, this time to grab something to eat.
And some plane spotting:
Austrian and Delta:
Air Serbia, Wizz and United:
I bought a sandwich and sparkling water, the price was more than 10$ USD.
Airports aren't the cheapest place to eat…
I went to my traditional loo review :)
As you can see, the toilets were almost clean, but not perfect.
D concourse area:
I went to the gate area (gate D4), approximately 40 minutes before departure:
You can see here our aircraft (OK-TST), Electra airways A320 (LZ-EAD, operated for Arkia) and Elal Boeing 787-9 (4X-EDM, Jerusalem of gold color scheme).
Jet bridge:
Our aircraft and behind it the Air Serbia A319:
Aircraft information:
Boeing 737-86N
Delivered to Norwegian Air Shuttle in March 2010 (LN-NOJ), then delivered to Norwegian Air International in February 2015 (EI-FHG) and finally delivered to Smartwings in April 2018 (OK-TST).
This aircraft was 13 years old when I flew on it.
Cabin:
Window view from my seat (4A):
Seat area:
As you can see, the legroom was good, the seats were in pretty good condition, although you can see a bit wear and tear here and there.
Old PSU this time…
Cabin view during boarding:
Those controls… Feels very retro
Meal menu on longer flights:
I think that the prices are very reasonable.
Take off video:
This aircraft was also fitted with some IFE, you need to connect to the Wifi onboard and you can stream movies and tv shows to your device:
Shortly after take off, over Tel Aviv area:
Enter text here…
10 minutes into the flight, the flight crew served as a small snack and a bottle of mineral water:
I was quite surprised to get something on this 40 minutes flight!
This time there is no loo review onboard.
The flight was very short and uneventful.
Landing video in PFO airport:
Our aircraft in PFO airport:
A bus took us to the terminal, the passport control process went very fast.
Baggage claim area in PFO airport:
I found it pretty useful that there is a shop, where you can buy small snacks or drinks after your flight.
This can be very useful if you have a long drive from the airport to your hotel.
Loo review in PFO:
As you can see, the toilets weren't so clean.
I went to the small car rental area:
The agent in AVIS was very nice!
He also upgraded my rental car to higher category for free!
The car rental parking located near the terminal, just 1-2 minutes of walking.
Still inside the terminal, I found even a coffee shop for the inbound flights:
Outside view of PFO airport:
Thanks for reading!
I flew with Smartwings several times, this was the best experience with them.
First of all, the flight took off on time and we arrived to PFO before our scheduled landing time.
The service on board was good, the aircraft was clean and the aircraft condition was pretty good.
I was surprised to get a snack and a bottle of water on such short flight, but also was surprised with the IFE solution.
For such short flight, I can't find any reason to complain.
TLV airport - well, I wrote about it many times, but this time the security process was so efficient!
Long time readers know that I like this airport, you can find many stores for shopping, as well as many restaurants and coffee shops to eat and drink and the airport is easy to navigate.
PFO airport was nice too, I didn't expect much from this airport, but the passport control process was very fast, it's small and easy to navigate and I can't say anything wrong about it, except the cleaning that could be better.
1 Comments
A surprisingly good experience on this flight with the free streaming IFE and a snack on such a short flight!
Thanks for sharing!
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