Review of El Al Israel Airlines flight from Madrid to Tel Aviv in Economy

Not your normal flight

Hello and welcome to a brand new series! This series will cover my 2-month-long trip to China - I'll explain more about that later on in this series (when we actually get to China). But first, we'll kick things off with a 2-week journey around the Middle East and the Caucasus. 

The first leg will be a flight to Tel Aviv on Israel's flag carrier - El Al. I booked this flight from Madrid as it was significantly cheaper than flying from London. El Al flies to Heathrow (with their 787s) and Luton (with their 737s), as of the writing of this FR. Luton is around €100 less than Heathrow. However, I hate the airport so much I'd much rather fly an 800-mile detour to Madrid just to avoid it (yes, really). 

As for price, I paid €218 ($240) single to Tel Aviv, which isn't too bad. 

I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.

Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)

We'll kick things off in the check-in area of Terminal 4. T4 is in a completely different place to the other 3 terminals. There's a free shuttle bus operating between the terminals every 10 minutes or so. 

View out of the window with an amazing view of the apron. This area is for domestic flights (hence all the Iberias) and is completely full with the planes parking here overnight. 

There are also some shops and a McDonald's tucked in a corner that's almost impossible to find without those massive signs at the end. 

To find the McDonald's, you walk to the very end of the building, turn left, and walk for another 1-2 minutes to get there. I have no idea why they picked such a weird location. 

And here's the check-in area for El Al… except… not really. Check-in for flights to Israel isn't as simple as just walking up to the agent with your passport and they print your boarding pass, send your bag off, and wish you a pleasant flight. 

Nope, to check in, you have to do an interview with an Israeli official, who asks you to tell them your life story (the counters for that are on the right). They then look through your passport and perform a full background check with the FBI before letting you through. (The background check & FBI part is false, but it definitely felt that way.) Except, it's not as 'simple' as that, each traveler is assigned a risk level based on the outcome of that interview, which then determines if you have to go through more checks at the gate. 

The entire process took over 30 minutes (excluding queue time) and everyone was told to go to the gate immediately in case of further checks. It kinda felt like the health/safety checks performed during Covid times (especially for China back in 2021), although for a completely different purpose. Check-in opened around 3 hours before departure, which was barely enough time for them to screen all the passengers. 

Luckily, security and immigration took only 10 minutes and here we are heading to the shuttle taking us to T4S (the 'S' stands for satellite)

I may be mistaken (this is my first time at T4) but T4S should be for all non-Schengen flights with T4 (non-S) for all Schengen flights. 

And here's the duty-free area. No exploring of the airport sadly as we were told (strictly) to head immediately to the gate. 

Walking past some more shops. 

And here are the gates. 

At our gate with another security checkpoint. The check here only took a few minutes and they give you a sticker to go with your bag tag and 2 security slips - the sticker basically shows that you've gone through all the checks. 

I'm feel exhausted and boading haven't even started haha. 

And here's a photo of our plane, sadly the view isn't great. 

The Flight

Flight time to Tel Aviv will be around 4 hours and 30 minutes and here's our route. 

ADS-B (flight) tracking is very unreliable around the coast of Israel/Lebanon. Sometimes it works, sometimes the planes diappear around the coast (which is what happened here) and sometimes all the planes teleport to Beirut Airport. 

Boarding started on time and here's a photo of the seatback pocket and tray table. 

The legroom - average. 

A USB port is also available (that blue light on the right). 

First views out of the window with an Aviance 787 heading to Bogotá (BOG). 

Pushback 30 minutes late - this was due to congestion over the skies of Europe. It happens a lot in the summer months.

Takeoff! Bye bye Spain! 

Reaching our cruising altitude somewhere around Eastern Spain. 

Over the Mediterranean. 

Shortly after, the crew came around with some water…

… and a hot snack. The label on it is 'Pretzel sandwich with chicken breast'. I have no idea what a 'Pretzel Sandwich' is… except it's clearly not shaped like a pretzel. But still, it tastes amazing and is really nice, especilly considering what you normally (don't) get on European carriers.

Over Italy. The weather in Europe is really nice today, which is unlike my Freebird flight (shameless plug) just a month ago. 

Let's have a look at the contents of the seatback pocket, which includes a safety card…

… a duty-free catelogue. 

… and an inflight magazine. 

Over Eastern Europe with (what I presume to be) an island that may or may not be part of Greece. ;)

Descending into Tel Aviv with a very nice view of the city. 

On final approach.

And finally, welcome to Israel! We arrived 20 minutes late. 

View of the apron. It's fairly quiet as a lot of airlines canceled their flights to Tel Aviv when this was filmed.

On the remote stand you have an Israir A320. An Arkia Israeli Airlines A321neo can be seen on the right along with a few El Als including 2 787s and a 737. 

Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV)

Heading to immigration. 

This is Terminal 3 at TLV, which is the main international airport (and the newer one of the 2 terminals). T1 is mainly used by LCCs and domestic flights. 

Immigration took around 15 minutes. Considering all the security on the Madrid side, immigration here is surprisingly quick and seamless. The agent just asked my where and how long I'm staying and sent me on my way. 

And here's baggage reclaim. It took another 15 minutes for my bag to arrive. 

And here's the landside area. We'll have a better look at the airport when I depart (which will be the next FR). 

That's it for this FR. My next one will bring me to the Caucasus (you probably can guess the route by looking on FR24 haha). Thanks for reading and I'll see you there! ;)