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

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to Paris-Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG), which I took on 3 April 2018 on my way to a family trip in Paris.

This is the earliest flight I could muster up a semi-decent amount of flight photos for (earlier flights were even more abysmal), and it took place almost eight years before the report was written. Even so, I did not take many pictures of the flight itself, or even of the trip in general.

BACKGROUND

During April 2018, at the week of the Jewish Holiday of Passover, me and my family (my parents, my grandmother, my siblings, and myself) went on a trip to Paris. As one of the must-see destinations in what we term "Classical Europe" (אירופה הקלאסית), Paris is a destination that I visited two times before; in May of 2009, during Shavu'ot, and in March-April of 2012, during Passover. I would later visit Paris again one more time as of the initial writing of this report (in June 2024, during Shavu'ot).

The flight itinerary for the trip was:

BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

Me and my family arrived at the Airport by 15, around two hours before the scheduled departure time. In hindsight, it was surprising that the airport doesn't appear to be busy, especially given that we were flying during Passover, one of the peak tourism seasons.

However, the lines were evidently long enough to be boredom-inducing, especially for any younger passengers, given the presence of clowns and mascots of David Ben-Gurion (first Prime Minister of Israel; the then-Lod Airport was renamed after him in 1973 as an in-memoriam following his death).

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft Information:
4X-ECE "Sderot"
Boeing 777-258ER (serial number 36083, line number 648)

Delivered new to El Al on 26 July 2007; 10 years and 9 months old at the time of the flight.

This is my second time verifiably flying on that plane; though I have limited records about the planes I took before 2018, I know that I definitely flew on that plane before on a flight from London-Heathrow to Ben Gurion on 2 May 2017. There are also four flights where I have flown either on it or on 4x-ECF: on 5 April 2009 from Ben Gurion to Newark, on 27 May 2009 from Ben Gurion to Paris-CDG, 26 March 2010 from Ben Gurion to Milano-Malpensa, and on 30 March 2013 from Newark to Ben Gurion.

On the 777, El Al's economy class (at the time) had seats of unknown provenance, having 17.7-inch seat width and 32-inch row pitch, in a 3-3-3 configuration. Each seat had one AC plug, USB-A plug, and one LAN plug; the latter two are located below the IFE screen.

On El Al's first four 777s - 4X-ECA, 4X-ECB, 4X-ECC, and 4X-ECD - the in-flight entertainment was absolutely primitive, only having channels of two or three movies playing synchronously on a loop. 4X-ECE and 4X-ECF had an AVOD system called "Fly&Fun", but it is nonetheless a product of the mid-2000s which is clunky and slow-to-respond by modern standards.

Note that between 2023 and 2025, El Al's 777 fleet has underwent a cabin renewal program; Economy class now has Safran Z400 seats having 17-inch seat width and 31-inch row pitch in a 3-4-3 configuration, while the newly-added Premium Economy cabin has Safran Z535 seats having 18-inch seat width and 38-inch row pitch in a 2-4-2 configuration.

The plane I flew this flight on, 4X-ECE, was actually the first to be installed with the new cabin in July 2023 - though this, of course, would only happen five years after the flight.

We boarded the plane at around 16:40.

On my way to the seats, I took this picture of the rear Business class cabin (where there would now be the Premium Economy seats) - it was clearly left as it was from the last flight, what with all the uevenly-placed headrests and even closed window blinds! (Like all non-NA airlines, El Al requires the blinds to be open during taxi, takeoff, and landing, so that in an emergency, the crew could see outside the plane and emergency services could see its inside)

However, In this flight, I was seated in Economy class - seat 29C, specifically.

Although pushback - and the safety video - happened on time, we ultimately only took off at 17:27, 17 minutes behind schedule.

It is notable that in this flight, El Al already had their current safety video (as of the writing of this report), which features stage magician Lior Suchard; I remembered that this flight still had their previous animated one. This false memory is probably because I associate Suchard's video with my flights during the post-COVID period (especially the solo ones), since my next flight on El Al would turn out to happen in December of 2022, four-and-a-half years after this one - though obviously, I had no way of knowing it at the time.

Given that this flight was eight years in the past (as of the initial writing of this report) and I did not take much pictures, I don't have an accurate recollection of the IFE's variety. All I can say is that it was large enough that I could find two movies that interested me at the time, and at just enough time to cover almost the entire length of the flight.

The first movie, which I started a few minutes after takeoff, was Thor: Ragnarok.

Dinner was served around an hour after takeoff, and I ate it mid-movie. Since I was flying in economy class, it was nothing special: a breadroll with hummus; a first course of salad; a main course of spiced chicken, rice, and celery (not in a curry, despite what you might expect from most airlines; El Al only serves kosher meals, after all); and a small slice of dairy-free cake for dessert.

Around the midpoint of my flight, I moved to the second movie - This is Sodom (זוהי סדום), an Israeli comedy movie from 2010 based on the myth of Lot's escape from Sodom. This was my first time watching it, though it quickly became a favorite - to the point that ever since this flight, I seek it out in the IFE's library whenever I fly on El Al (and once even on Cathay Pacific), though usually without much success; the next - and only other - time I'd watch it in-flight would be in December 2023 on an El Al flight to Sofia.

Personally, I find this situation, where the country's flag carrier doesn't reliably carry iconic pieces of the local cinema on its IFE, to be rather disappointing. El Al is practically the only airline where one can watch Operation Grandma, This is Sodom, or Chalfon Hill Doesn't Answer at a 30,000 feet altitude, they should at the very least be a certain fixture of the IFE catalogue instead of only being on a roster.

Despite the late takeoff, we landed at 20:50 - 14 minutes ahead of schedule. At the landing, the IFE screens were shut off with a farewell message: