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

Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to Berlin-Brandenburg-Willy Brandt Airport (BER), which I took on 17 February 2025 to get to the NordicFuzzCon furry convention in Malmö, Sweden.

Unfortunately, since this flight was a red-eye flight which I mostly intended to sleep during, I did not take many pictures of the flight, and this report will be image-poor - with the exception of the tourism bonus, which deals with the train journey I took right after. I can only offer my apology for this.

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.

Since my participation in the 2024 edition - my first-ever time going overseas on my own - was a resounding success, it was only natural that I'd come again in 2025.

Unlike in 2024, which was my first time ever flying overseas on my own, by the time the 2025 edition rolled in I was already a well-seasoned solo traveller, both in general and regarding this particular journey's peculiarities, and I could plan my trip without falling into the beginner's mistakes I did in 2024.

This extended as early as the booking; while in my previous two times booking my own flight (in February and in September 2024), I booked the cheapest available ticket (which, funnily enough, turned out to be Lufthansa - a carrier whose short-haul flights I later found to be an unpleasant experience, particularly for the 3-to-5 hour range that Israel-Europe flights fall into - both times), in both cases, my booking had several itinerary changes due to the security situation in the Middle East, and I ultimately had to fly on backup flights booked with El Al. This time, however, I opted to book my flights with El Al straight away, both to ensure I'd fly the flights I've booked and to sit in a cabin appropriate for something longer than a short intra-European hop.

Booking with El Al also allowed me to deliberately plan layovers in airports I am already familiar with.

Keeping these rules in mind, the initial itinerary I booked was:

This specific choice of flights, for both the onward and the return journeys, was influenced by my prior flight experience: El Al's Premium Economy seats have enough pitch to fit my fursuit head bag in without the hefty price tag of Business class, while a return layover in Zürich, an airport I was already familiar with thanks to my flight from there to Hong Kong, would help me avoid a repeat of the dreadful Schiphol layover in my return flight from the previous year's NFC.

However, since the onward flight would require me to arrive at Ben Gurion Airport at 6:00 (giving me concerns about oversleeping and missing my flight), would involve a seven-hour long layover in Paris, and would eventually lead to me arriving in Malmö at around 23:00-23:30, I opted instead to change my onward journey to a single flight leg to Berlin, from which I'd take a train to Hamburg, and from Hamburg another train to Copenhagen.

Although I'd have to arrive at the airport three hours earlier, I would not oversleep (as I would simply stay awake until it's time to get to the flight, and sleep on board it), while the trains' schedule would allow me to arrive in Malmö as early as 20:00 (in reality, the Hamburg-Copenhagen train accumulated enough delays that I only arrived an hour later).

Therefore, the final flight itinerary was:

The itinerary also included intercity trains ICE802 (Berlin → Hamburg) and EC392 (Hamburg → Copenhagen).

BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3

After a very fine - and very bleak - conversation with the taxi driver, I arrived at the airport by 2:51, around three hours before the scheduled departure time, and quickly made my way to the check-in desk. I prefer checking in at 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.

As my flight was a red-eye flight in the off-peak season, the airport was barely full. Security and passport control were a breeze, and I made it to the Terminal in just 30 minutes.

As I still had two hours to spare before boarding begins, I had a very early breakfast of a bratwürst and not much else - a snack fit for a flight to Germany (even though Berlin is in a completely different part of it).

My flight departed from Gate E7 - in the same concourse, but not the same gate, as the previous year's. I made it to the gate at 5:05, fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time.

THE FLIGHT ITSELF

Aircraft Information:
4X-EHH "Kiryat Motzkin"
Boeing 737-958ER (serial number 41558, line number 5791)

Delivered new to El Al on 29 February 2016; 8 years and 11 months old at the time of the flight.

This was my first time flying on that plane. As of the initial writing of this report, I would later fly on the same plane on the return flight from Zürich.

Boarding began exactly on time - which is not at all the usual modus operandi in Ben Gurion Airport - and I was among the first to board. As a passenger with a non-visible disability, I am qualified for priority boarding, though I only make use of it in my solo flights for obvious reasons.

Cabin view in Business class:

El Al's short-haul fleet has a broadly similar cabin across models - a Business class of 16 seats having 43-inch pitch and 20-inch width in a 2-2 configuration, and the rest of the plane taken up by an economy class with the standard 32-inch pitch and 17-inch width.

As can be concluded from the variation in seat dimensions between classes, the 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.

The amenities of the two cabins are also near-identical - a bring-your-own-screen IFE system, USB-A charging ports in all seats, and AC plugs in business class. (The 737-800's newer seats also offer USB-C charging, while the 737-900 has AC plugs in Economy class as well.)

While these details would usually mean there's no significant differences between El Al's 737-800s and its 737-900s, the devil lies in the details: El Al's 737-900s are significantly younger than all but one of its 737-800s. This means that, on one hand, the 737-900s have the Boeing Sky Interior cabin retrofit (and therefore, larger overhead storage bins), but on the other hand, they have the original seats from the mid-2010s - B/EA Millennium in Business class (the exact same model is also used by Air China's short-haul Business Class, albeit with an IFE screen that El Al's version lacks), and Collins Pinnacle in economy class (also used by British Airways, among others); while the 737-800s have the older interior with its smaller PSUs, their cabins were renovated in the 2020s with new seats - Collins MiQ in Business Class and Collins Meridian in Economy Class.

(The one exceptional 737-800, 4X-EKK "Giv'at Shmu'el", offers the best of both worlds - the same new-generation seats as its 737-800 brethren alongside the BSI and its larger overhead bins).

The differences between the two generations of seats are negligible in Business class, but - as you'll find in this report - very noticeable in Economy class.

My seat for this flight was 28H, the aisle seat on the right side of the plane.

Fortunately, as the middle seat in my row was neither booked nor taken, I could use it to place my fursuit head bag, freeing up the precious leg-space I would otherwise have to scoot it into (a feat which is only possible on the aisle seats).

I struggled to find a tablet holder into which to fit my iPad (to use as an IFE screen), and even asked a flight attendant - who, in a very generous display of helpfulness in the face of my obvious stupidity, reminded me that the table holder is a feature of the 737-800s' seats, not the 737-900s'. Afterwards, I tried to find a place to store my iPad in - the most obvious to my very tired self at the time was the literature pocket, which was as good an idea as it sounded like. Thankfully, my iPad only suffered cosmetic damage as a result!

Given my recent successes in sleeping in flight - on my flight from Zürich to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to Frankfurt, both as part of the family trip to China - I assumed that lightning would strike thrice and that I would be able to sleep as soon as the plane is in the air and wake up just in time for my arrival in Berlin. So not long after takeoff, I put on my neck pillow, scruffled through an amenity kit from a past flight for an eyemask, and fell asleep quickly.

However, quite disappointingly, I woke up with two hours of flight time still remaining. To pass the time, I tried to watch a movie via the BYOD IFE: Crazy Rich Asians was my choice. However, as I still felt sleepy (not helped by the lack of convenient place for the iPad), I didn't even get through the first minute before trying to sleep again.

Eventually, by 9:10 Germany time (10:10 Israel time), and after lots of circling around, my plane made a final approach to the very snowy landscape around the German capital.

The plane landed at 9:14, but only reached the gate around 10-15 minutes later. I deplaned at around 9:40, made it quickly through passport control (purely thanks to the priority lines for passengers with disabilities - the regular lines were extremely long!), and arrived at baggage claim at 9:50. However, at that point I was desperately looking for a plug to change my phone.

My suitcase arrived at 9:59, roughly 20 minutes after I disembarked, which was a very positive surprise - based on my experience in Frankfurt Airport, I assumed my baggage would only arrive at 10:30 or even 11:00.

After getting my suitcase, I went past customs to the airport's transit station, for the train-based part of my journey to Malmö - which will be covered in the bonus section below.