Originally Posted by Often1

The summary here seems to be that OP has business in Israel in the UK and finds that neither BA nor AY offer good value. There are other options which involve multiple carriers with connections in IST, FRA and so on. But, that is of course much more inconvenient and nothing avoids having to deal with TLV and a LON airport at some point in the journey.
Your comment implies that I said "BA is rubbish - don't fly with them". When did I say that? I've just pointed out how *sometimes* BA behaves like WizzAir/easyJet/.. It does not mean I won't fly BA. Come on, they are not El Al. There are not there yet. Indeed, and I do use other options, not because I hate to fly BA, but because sometimes price/schedule fit better. Some flights with connections depart earlier than BA in the evening with a short connection and arrive earlier. If there is an option not to wait until their 22:30 PM LHR/TLV I do that.

OP simply misunderstands the nature and limitations of commercial aviation. He believes that when an aircraft is parked off-stand that the inbound pilot was lazy.

What he fails to realize and has not taken the time to understand is that the Command Captain has no say in where the aircraft is parked and that the carrier's preference is to park its aircraft at a jetbridge, but that there are more aircraft than jetbridges, thus some park offstand, necessitating the bus.

It was a random irrelevant assumption. I don't care whether it is the pilot or some guy sitting in London. What I do know that it takes more work and money to taxi the airplane twice. Twice means more money paid to TLV airport. Don't tell me "the airport was busy or some other nonsense as the airport was empty. I've been flying from and to TLV for many years and was never bused to the airport, although I was bused to the airplane, for some cheap airliners who have parked the entire night. It is possible also that the same flight crew is supposed to fly the aircraft back to Heathrow day after and they must have minimum amount of hours of rest, the flight was already delayed, maybe this is a factor. But... I don't care about the reason. Especially that passengers were not given reason why we were bused, and that everything indicates that BA is trying to save money.


This inconvenience will continue unless one of two things happens, LHR is enlarged or the number of rotations is decreased. Will that mean fewer frequencies to/from TLV? Perhaps. But, if the service standard is that every frequency must have a jetbridge, there will be significantly fewer flights.
You should have read my comments. I complained about TLV, and not Heathrow. I do understand that Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports and I do try to avoid it, but that has nothing to do with BA.

"Circling" the airport on arrival is a nuisance. It occurs less and less with ATC doing a better job of holding aircraft at their departure and slowing aircraft enroute so that they can be routed directly in.

But, at all major airports in the world, congestion is a fact of life. There is only so much airspace and there are more people who want to go to LON there are cubic feet to acommodate them at some times of day. The easy solution is, of course, to limit the number of flights. But, that is unappealing to most sensible people who would suggest that imposing irreversible economic harm on the UK economy to prevent the rants of a few passengers who have not thought through their complaints is likely a poor idea.

Well, again, you should have read my original comments, I said I'm not complaining about this.

OP's sole valid complaint is with hand luggage. It is true that BA ought to do a better job of policing that and the screaming fights which ensue can best be dealt with harshly before boarding by simply diverting those passengers to the side. But, ironically, the same sort of self-entitlement regarding hand baggage which delays flights is the sort which suggests that TLV services should have some priority for jetbridges over others.