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

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to Vienna-Schwechat Airport (VIE), which I took on 11 August 2025 to get to my vacation from Vienna and Prague.

This is my first ever review on this site (it was written concurrently with the report of the return flight to Prague), so please tell me if I made any beginner's mistakes.

BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

I arrived at the airport at around 14:30, three hours before the scheduled departure time, and checked in at the desk. I prefer the desk over self-service kiosks: these sort of automated machines are good for 90% of use cases, but since I'm autistic, I fall in the 10% it isn't good for more often than not, so I appreciate dealing with a human being who knows what to do if I show my disability card and ask for help.

For lunch, I went to the McDonalds at the food court and had the chicken nuggets (my usual meal when I eat in Terminal 3). As expected from these sort of places, It's nothing special.

I would appreciate having some non-Kosher dining options in the Terminal, though.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft Information:
4X-EKF "Kinneret"
Boeing 737-8HX (serial number 29638, line number 2766)
Delivered new to El Al on 31 December 2008; 16 years and 7 months old at the time of the flight.

I previously flew on that plane on a flight from Ben Gurion to Frankfurt on 17 September 2024 (and potentially even before; I have limited records about the planes I took before 2018). I would later fly on the same plane on the return flight from Prague.

The flight itself was nothing special. Though my seat did have increased legroom, I didn't feel much of a difference in practice since I travelled with my fursuit head bag, a large personal item that does not fit into the overhead compartments (though it does fit into the overhead compartments on 737s with the newer PSUs). Each seat also has one USB-A plug and one USB-C plug, which is good for charging smartphones and tablets on the go, but laptop users get the short end of the stick.

Cabin views:

The in-flight entertainment system is a "bring your own screen" one: the plane has an internal Wi-Fi network (without internet connection), which you connect your own smartphone or tablet to to use as a screen, and the seats have a device-holder built into them. My 12.9" iPad fits snugly into the groove at the seatback, but is too large to fit into the holder's upper grip, so I occasionally had to hold it manually against the seat to prevent it from tipping over.

The selection of movies is rather limited (as it is in every airline I flew with, with the only exception being Cathay Pacific), but it's good that there is one; especially when the alternative is European airlines that don't have any IFE system at all on their short-haul fleet (based off my experiences on SWISS, Lufthansa, and SAS' short-haul fleets).

As for the in-flight meal, El Al's flights to Europe (with the exception of 787/777-operated flights to London-Heathrow, Paris, and Moscow) only have a small cold sandwich, which (at least in my case) was not very appetizing.

While I understand that there's space constraints on the plane, a small, cold, bland sandwich is hardly an acceptable dinner, and I think there should at the very least be an option to pay for a larger warm meal - especially in a flight that occurs during dinnertime and lands at 20:00 local time (with arrival in the city itself being as late as 22:00, well after the closing hours of many restaurants).

VIENNA-SCHWECHAT AIRPORT

The plane landed at a remote stand, with passengers being bussed to immigration. While this makes for a nice "scenic route" to end the flight, it was a bit of a disappointment in this particular case, since I assumed we would be taxied to a jetbridge.

The baggage claim area in Vienna is utilitarian and unimpressive - doubly so for its expansion (which I walked through to get to my belt, which was in the nicer-looking pre-expansion area.) It also contains a lot of advertising for the City-Airport Train, which I'll talk about later.

What is impressive, however, is what that comes right after the baggage claim: the airport's main (and very large) atrium. I especially like the arrival board, which is backprojected into one of the glass walls, looking like something out of a science fiction movie. However, the tourist information desk was closed for the night, which meant I could not obtain a public transportation pass for my trip.

From the main atrium, I proceeded to the train station where I took a train to the city center.

There are two train services from the airport to Vienna: the S7 and the City-Airport Train.
- The City-Airport Train is an express service that runs non-stop between the airport and Wien-Mitte/Landstraße station in the city center, making the journey in 15 minutes. It is heavily advertised throughout the airport and noticeably expensive (roughly €15 per one single-trip ticket), which led to many online guides to label it a tourist trap.
- The S7 (line 7 of the Vienna S-Bahn) forms part of the "ordinary" Viennese public transport network. Though it also goes to Wien-Mitte/Landstraße, it makes seven stops inbetween, making the joruney time from the airport to Wien-Mitte/Landstraße in 25 minutes. However, a single-trip ticket on it costs €4.60, the same as it does on the rest of the S-Bahn.
Both the City-Airport Train and the S7 run twice per hour, with the CAT departing roughly 10 minutes before the S7. Because of this, taking the S7 would have actually brought me to Vienna city center earlier than the CAT - and this, plus the much cheaper price, is why I took it.

(I also personally find it disappointing that both the CAT and the S7 run only to Vienna and not also to Bratislava, even though Vienna Airport is the primary airport serving both cities. Hopefully this would change in the future.)