ELY001

Do you recall the tail number or a/c type? Was it a 763?

Hearing stories like this tends to validate my safety and security concerns about EL AL and it's ops. Shouldn't the plane not have departed until the luggage of pax who stormed off the flight were removed from the cargo hold?

sds1493

How is this luggage any different to when an airline lose my luggage and put it on the next flight. Obviously the latter case is out of my control, but so is a multiple hour delay. Assuming correct luggage screening, there will be nothing untoward in the hold, irrespective of whether the pax is on board.

NYTA

Is there any way to quantify recent mx problems vs those in the past?

LY777

No ELY001, this was a 744 (4X-ELE)

ELY001

If BA6948's account of the whole situation is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt him) the fact that pax were allowed to storm off the a/c and seemingly disappear while their luggage remained on the a/c is troubling. An airline losing your luggage is a different situation. For starters you neither storm off the a/c nor fail to reappear for the flight. Given EL AL's unique security situation I would hope that the ground staff were at least able to account for the whereabouts of the pax who stormed off the flight and whose luggage remained in the cargo hold, however given the sort of balagan reported I doubt it.

When I flew on that particular a/c soon after EL AL put it into service I was stunned at how shabby the interior was. The controls on my seat had duct tape on them. I informed senior execs that when an a/c on such an important and flagship route such as NY-TLV appears so shabby on the inside, it can create doubt as to whether more critical systems of the a/c are in good order. Not saying the two are related, just giving my opinion on how shabby that a/c was when I flew on it.

simba8

Thats pretty brutal.
I guess you should able to apply for compensation from El Al as delays of five to eight hours obligate the airline to offer a refund or a ticket for an alternative flight. If you choose an alternative flight that departs the following day, the airline must also offer lodging and transportation.

Additionally, according to El Al's "General Conditions of Carriage"

9.2.2 If we cancel a flight, fail to operate a flight reasonably according to the schedule, fail to stop at your destination or Stopover destination, or cause you to miss a connecting flight on which you hold a confirmed reservation we shall, in agreement with the Passenger, either:
(a) carry you at the earliest opportunity on another of our scheduled services on which space is available without additional charge and, where necessary, extend the validity of your Ticket; or
(b) within a reasonable period of time re-route you to the destination shown on your Ticket by our own services or those of another carrier, or by other mutually agreed means and class of transportation without additional charge. If the fare and charges for the revised routing are lower than what you have paid, we shall refund the difference; or

ELY001

The issue here is what is "reasonable" under the legal definition. I suspect the pax involved and EL AL management have different ideas of what "reasonable" period entails.

BA6948

there was a family that left 5 minutes before the door closed. They say have known who left but they did not have the time to remove their luggage. At 19:00 I was actually going to enquire about rebooking to another flight, LY customer agent told I could that however my luggage will still be on the flight as they did not want to take the risk to delay the flight further. I guess LY feels that the luggage that goes into the hold is safe after being screened by airport security personnel.

LY has announced that all passengers will get NIS2000 compensation or a free return ticket to TLV as a compensation to this delay.

Honestly I still feel exhausted one day after the ordeal. Kind of jet lagged.

yosithezet

You could start to go through the incidents posted and turn this into a Wikipost and document them.

NYTA

True although my point is that if you wanted to compare, say, the last 5 years vs. the prior 5 years, we don't have the historical data here. I somehow suspect that Liat will not be able to help with this one if she's even still lurking here.

LY777

Unfortunately, I don't think Liat still comes here

elal767

UP from SXF that was supposed to leave at 9.50 is still on the ground as we speak. Was supposedly delayed by the fog that hit the airfield in the morning, but even as the incoming a/c landed and all is back to normal, the passengers are still waiting for takeoff with no one giving them any info whatsoever.
Current METAR - EDDB 011050Z VRB02KT 9000 SCT008 SCT080 17/15 Q1027 NOSIG.
In other words, the fog is very real, but once you land it shouldn't be a problem to get outta there. This is starting to look like yet another m/x problem.
I've said it before - if you really need to go to Berlin, EasyJet, Lufthansa, AirBerlin and even Israir are much better than UP.

Developing...

EL-AL 1971

I wonder if they were able to transfer all the passengers on that flight......this would mean that the second daily flight was empty, or did they use a larger plane?

Ha ha yes you can get fondue and raclette in ZRH and GVA...... Well, Zurich has become a fantastic airport after years of transformations.......

Shana tova to all :-)

EL-AL 1971

If I understand correctly the situation, the flight left at 22 instead of 10, meaning there is a 10 hours delay..... Well, this is beyond ANY definition of "reasonable" in any language, in any place and in any legal system..... El Al is here in a crystal clear breach of its contractual obligations and it is too bad that apparently no one of these passengers took legal action against the airline.

To start with, I would have refused to fly on this plane. What happened? What did the technical team do during all the hours the plane was away from the gate if at the end it was "repaired" in the evening when the passengers were on board??? I guess it was standing out of sight and NO ONE cared about it.

ELY001

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.620915


According to the article,

"Failures among a crew of El Al pilots almost caused an extremely serious emergency during an incident at Heathrow Airport in London, attorney Itzhak Raz, the chief air traffic accidents investigator at the Transportation Ministry, revealed in a report released on Tuesday at the end of a two-year investigation. "

Another interesting quote:

“The flight crew did not act in the optimal or acceptable manner, starting when the malfunction occurred in the air. The captain performed several actions in the cockpit without notifying the first officer of his intentions and without obtaining confirmation for such actions from the first officer, as is required by the standards of teamwork,”

This is very troubling and further validates my opinion as to what this airline has become post privatization.