Review of Sun D'Or flight from Tel Aviv to Warsaw in Business

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to Warsaw-Frédéric Chopin Airport (WAW), which I took on 20 February 2024 to get to the NordicFuzzCon furry convention in Malmö, Sweden.

This flight has a special significance to me, as it was my first-ever time flying alone.

BACKGROUND

NordicFuzzCon is an annual furry convention taking place in Malmö, Sweden. As of the initial writing of this report, I attended its 2024 and 2025 editions, and have my convention ticket, hotel, and (most importantly for this site) flights booked for the 2026 edition.

My attendance at NordicFuzzCon 2024 was my first-ever time going overseas on my own, and involved a lot of advance planning.

Initially, I booked my flights to and from Copenhagen-Kastrup airport (CPH) - which serves not only the Danish Capital but also the Swedish region of Scania right across the Öresund, where the city of Malmö is located - with Lufthansa. The initial itinerary I booked was:

though due to itinerary changes resulting from the security situation in the Middle East, it eventually changed to:

However, on 18 February, Lufthansa's ground staff on Frankfurt Airport announced a strike starting 20 February, the day I was scheduled to depart, which led to the cancellation of around 900 flights, including LH687 and LH832; my parents helped me book a last-minute ticket with El Al. In retrospect, given how my experience with Lufthansa's short-haul product actually turned out, this strike proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Therefore, my final flight itinerary was:

El Al's flights to Warsaw are operated by the Sun d'Or sub-brand, which is used for discounted flights to leisure destinations. Sun d'Or flights only have economy class, and would usually be operated by a plane with an all-economy configuration; however, this particular flight was done by a "mainstream" El Al plane. This means that the business-class seats were available for passengers with Flex economy tickets (which, as I mentioned in my TLV-VIE flight review, allows free and unrestricted seat choice), and that, although my seat was a business-class one, I had an economy-class ticket and received economy-class service.

BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

I woke up at around 7, and had a breakfast with my family at Benedict Sarona Market at 8:30, to celebrate the momentous occasion of taking my first-ever solo flight.

At around 9:30, two hours before the scheduled departure time, my parents dropped me off at the airport:

The airport was very empty due to a combination of two factors: my flight was during the off-peak season, and the security situation in the Middle East at the time. This made for quick security and passport controls. However, as this was my first time ever flying on my own (though I flew around 60 times prior, it was always with another member of my family), it took me time to learn the ropes of check-in and I was anxious about every process, so I only made it to the terminal by 10:20.

I reached the gate at 10:50, ten minutes before departure time.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft Information:
4X-EKL "Nahalal"
Boeing 737-85P (serial number 35487, line number 2941)

Delivered new to El Al on 23 June 2009; 14 years and 8 months old at the time of the flight.

Though this is my first time verifiably flying on that plane, I may have flown on it before; I have limited records about the planes I took before 2018.

The flight itself was nothing special. However, as I would later learn, the vastly increased legroom in the Business-class seat would prove beneficial, since my fursuit head bag, a large personal item, does not fit into the overhead compartments on 737s with the older PSUs, and is hard to stow under the seat in front of me in the proper economy class cabin.

El Al's short-haul Business class uses dedicated seats (similarly to Domestic First in North America), rather than Economy class-seats with an unbookable middle seat common in European airliners. This means that the seat was wide and comfortable, and legroom was plentiful. Each seat has one USB-A plug, one USB-C plug, and one AC plug, which are located in the seat's inner arm, making them a bit hard to reach.

Cabin views:

Higher quality views of the same cabin are available in my PRG-TLV flight review.

We took off at around 12. Since I was sitting in a window seat, this gave me an opportunity to take some takeoff shots:

Around 30 minutes after takeoff, the meal service began. Unlike "mainstream" El Al flights to Europe, which feature a three-course meal in Business and Premium Economy classes and a small sandwich in Economy class, Sun d'Or has a paid-for menu similarly to low-cost (and European full-service) carriers, which you pay by either cash or credit card. However, at the time I only had a debit card, so I could not pay for any menu item. For this reason, All I had to eat during the flight was a pack of Abadi pretzels:

In-flight entertainment, however, was pretty decent, thanks to the plane coming from the mainstream El Al fleet, and therefore having the Bring-your-own-screen IFE system (though per Sun d'Or's website, their dedicated fleet has this system as well).

The in-flight entertainment system is a "bring your own device" 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. While the economy-class seats have a device-holder built into them, the business class seats don't: instead, I just put my iPad on the tray table.

The selection of movies is rather limited (as it is in every airline I flew with, with the only exception being Cathay Pacific, which I was yet to fly on at the time), 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 - later relative to this flight - experiences on SWISS, Lufthansa, and SAS' short-haul fleets).

While my first choice was Wonder Woman 1984, I only watched the first 15 or so minutes of it, as I found it boring. I switched to Mahapach, a documentary about Menachem Begin (prominent Israeli historical right-wing politician and Prime Minister between 1977 and 1983):

With an episode of Zehu Ze! to cover the remaining time until landing:

Views of Warsaw at landing:

The landing in Chopin Airport was uneventful. Despite an intrusive temptation to follow the signs to the city, I knew I had to go to the airport for my three-hour layover ahead of the flight to Copenhagen.