This is proprietary information which I will not disclose in a public forum but what I will say is that EL AL's current net worth, when you subtract liabilities, is around $35 million. This $35 million figure includes equity in some of the aircraft they own (primarily the 772's) none of which I want, except for the 738's.

As far as my investor pool is concerned, it consists of American Jews and American Evengelical Christians. None of them are investing for the purpose of making a profit. They are all investing because they believe, as do I, that the State of Israel needs a viable national carrier and we do not want to see the EL AL name go by the wayside as so many long standing carriers have in recent years.

As far as management is concerned, we will have at minimum 60% less VP's and managers. We will close down many offices (particularly in Europe) where activities are redundant and quite frankly can be handled out of TLV, London, or Paris. I will be the CEO of the new EL AL and will leave my post after 4 years by which time I expect to have accomplished most, if not all, of what I want for this new carrier.

During and after the start up phase, I plan to rely heavily on the regulars in this forum to not only advise on the specific seats and IFE to purchase, but on Matmid benefits, flight schedules, and personal observations of what the old EL AL did right so we could replicate it, and what the old EL AL did wrong so we can avoid it. I will be personally in touch with the frequent posters here and will always be accessible to them.

Kol ha-kavod!

What have you got against the B777?

I was asking me the very same question...
The 777 is a very efficient a/c, has "unlimited" rangeand passengers enjoy flying on it. And it is one of the safest a/c in the world.

The only times I prefer the 767 over the 777 are on BA, where Y is 2-3-2, and UA since F is 1-1-1 in instead of 1-2-1 and C is 2-2-2 instead of 2-4-2.
Love the 772 though overall! Best a/c on LY, best on overall on UA, and wonderful and reliable a/c.
(Also prefer the 744 for upper deck.)

I have nothing against the 777 per se. The reason why I would get rid of both the 767's and 777's has to do primarily with fleet rationalization.

I want to rationalize the fleet around 3 a/c types only; the A380, A330, and 737. We all know that LY needs to replace the 767's soon. I believe that the A330 is a perfect replacement for both the 767 and 777 as its size is between the two and any route that the 767 and 777 fly, the A330 could fly more economically. Back during the late 1990's former EL AL CEO Joel Feldschuh actually picked the A330 over the 777 after an extensive study was done showing that this type would be more economical for LY than the 777. He essentially got fired for that decision and the government forced LY to go with the 777, which was a mistake from a purely economical standpoint.

There is also another issue involved. If I go to Airbus and tell them, hey I want to rationalize my entire long haul fleet with your models, they would be much more eager to do whatever needed to be done to get the deal as oppose to me going to them and saying I want a few A380s only.

The 777 is indeed a great a/c however airlines are a business and a/c purchases need to be decided using purely business considerations. The A330 would be benefit LY's economics significantly more than the 777 for the reasons and rationale I stated in my previous post.

I wouldn't use the 380/330 combination. The A330 is a dying aircraft, its replacement is but a few years away. It would make sense to go for the 350, but that aircraft is 5+ years away. The 380 is only good for a couple routes, while a 748 is a bit more economical if its not always packed (aside from looking a lot better). I would rather invest a much smaller amount of capital in refurbishing the 763/777 fleets to a common premium cabin standard (lie flat C, much better F on the 777), replace the full airplane with the new boeing interiors. There's nothing wrong with a 767 or a 777, its mostly how you outfit it (and from what I've been able to tell, the fuel burn on the 777 is slightly better than the 330 on 3000-6000nm stages). Place the new premium product in the 747, but look towards replacing a lot of those birds in the next 3-5 years 1:1 with the 748.

Hi ELY001, maybe you take another aircraft into your considerations, the A350-900R, coming soon with a maximum range of 19.100 km. I think that should be popular for point to point LHR SYD for example.

Nevertheless, I usually prefer to have a stop on such a long flight, just to move around a bid and to have a smoke.

I think you should let him do whatever he wants. It's his company after all.

Sure. was there something within my post implying advise?

I found it only interesting that Airbus has a plane in the pipeline which surpasses all others in terms of range by some another 3000 km or so and its not much talked about.

And its scheduled for delivery in 2016 (3 years from now). OK, ignoring the Gremlins of the 787. that means JFK<>SYD or LHR<>SYD non-stop and I am not sure how that plays into for eg. Quantas business considering DXB.

EL AL is hampered in many ways due to not every nation wanting to deal with the Jewish state and its entities.

For instance SIN - while SIN would be very welcoming to EL AL - its impossible to get in and out of SIN as Malaysia and Indonesia will not allow EL AL overfly rights.

How are you going to differentiate the security issue. I know I always fly EL AL to Isreal due to the security, if that changes then it opens up competition for me, and maybe for many other pax.

Yes, and to serve as a regional hub for feeding pax in the system is IMO equally troublesome, that hub revenue will be likely untapped for the near future. I am an optimist, there are so many signs on the wall that this is going to change slowly, but it will be still 20 years or so until something like a normalization can materialize, a bid long in my opinion for a business plan of a private company.

For me its a bid in reverse, I feel that all carriers are safe to TLV and I prefer to stick mostly with them who offer me the most seamless network and an executive bonus on my miles, that is not LY. I am more annoyed if someone runs away with my laptop with many sensitive data on it. If already on MUC they are able to abuse security checks for different purposes, how is that going to look like on TLV where the laptop is being regularly taken away from your sight. I have nothing to hide, but my stomach crampes anyway. Then, how is the heigthened security need squaring with more transit pax, I don't know and can not imagin how they will feel @TLV about too much transit pax there.

All in all, not the most promising aspect for a hub.

I think there is some possibility that LY could capitalize on North American business traffic that has ties to Israel. For example, during off-peak periods USA-TLV and TLV-2ndary europe, LY could offer a fare that allows a 24-48 hour stopover in TLV enroute to europe.

I would certainly love to grab a day in Tel Aviv, with the added benefit that the long flight is longer allowing for more sleep than the 8 hour NY-Europe. It could add some nice marginal demand, if only a dozen people a day.

Bernie 2012,

The reason why I won't consider the A350 is 2 fold. First, its release is years away and we would likely not be able to receive this a/c until years after that. Second, I am reluctant to acquire brand new a/c from manufacturers because of the notorious kinks you would have to deal with such as the recent 787 battery fiasco and A380's cracked wings, to name a few.

In addition, the acquisition (purchase or lease rates) for new model a/c is significantly higher than for older ones. Given that the A330 is approaching the end of its manufacturing life-cycle, Airbus would be eager to sell a few more at steep discounts. The A330 would generate higher yields for LY than the 767 and 777 fleets combined currently do.

As far as flying to SYD, I would not be interested in that route for several reasons. First, I don't believe traffic numbers between Australia and Israel are high enough to justify the expense of opening up this relatively ULH route (please don't quote me on that as I do not have the actual figures) and LY's current code share agreement with QF from BKK works well. Second, the Australian government has, in the past, refused to allow EL AL security to carry weapons on their soil which would pose a security problem.