Hello and welcome to this review of the flight from Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) to Rome-Fiumicino Airport (FCO), which I took on 16 February 2026 to get to the NordicFuzzCon furry convention in Malmö, Sweden.
Since, this flight, alongside my other flights to the convention and back home, are the first flights I took after joining Flight-Report, this report will be much more detailed and image-rich than my previous ones, and would also be written in mostly real-time rather than retrospectively.
BACKGROUND
My flight tickets for the convention were booked in September, well in advance of the convention and even a month ahead of the convention's registration opening.
The flight itinerary I took for the trip was:
Enchainement de vols
- 1LY385 - Economy - Tel Aviv → Rome - Boeing 737-800
- 2
- 3
- 4
When researching flight options, I first went to El Al's website: with the exception of the flight to Rome, which I eventually picked, all flights on offer had short layover times below what I'd consider acceptable - to the disbelief of my dad, who I consulted about the flights with. (A rule I learned from an internet friend is to never book flights with layovers shorter than 90 minutes; while I only learned this rule in May 2024, my dreadful 90-minute layover in Schiphol three months before helped cement it as the minimum layover time in my mind.)
The flights on offer on El Al's site were:
- TLV departure 06:40, CPH arrival 13:25, 1h20m layover in MXP (LY387->SK1684)
- TLV departure 06:10, CPH arrival 14:30, 3h layover in FCO (LY385->SK682) [ultimately selected]
- TLV departure 16:15, CPH arrival 21:50, 1h layover in VIE (LY363->SK696)
- TLV departure 06:00, CPH arrival 11:40, 1h layover in WAW (LY5101->SK752)
- TLV departure 10:45, CPH arrival 16:25, 1h layover in WAW (LO156->SK2762)
Another complicating factor was the fact that I wanted to fly at least one of the flights on a widebody plane. Given that this was the off-peak season, I would have to route my flight either via London-Heathrow or via Paris, as these are the only European destinations El Al consistently flies widebodies to year-round. Since El Al's website did not offer any routing from CPH via LHR/CDG (although there were routings from ARN via LHR, they would have required me to plug the gap from Malmö to Stockholm by a three-to-four hour train journey: I could not find any conveniently-timed train since SJ, the Swedish national railway, have yet to publish their 2026 schedule at the time), I instead had to resort to ITA Matrix, a professional flight-finding tool recommended by the HaMatmidim frequent flyer blog, to find my flight.
Since ITA Matrix is a professional tool, It does not let you book the flight on your own; instead, you'd have to forward the details of your booking to a flight agent, who would book the flights for you. My dad was a great help in this, as he helped me book the flights through his own travel agent - though, of course, I was the one who paid for them.
Through ITA Matrix, I found out that there's a routing available from CPH via CDG to TLV, taking flights SK565 from CPH to CDG and LY324 from CDG to TLV. Though some of El Al's TLV-CDG flights are operated by the narrowbody fleet, LY324 is consistently operated by a widebody, which made it more attractive to me.
At the time of the initial booking, LY324 was scheduled to be operated by a 777-200 - the oldest and largest widebodies in El Al's fleet, which underwent a full cabin renewal in 2023-25; though I have flown on El Al's 777s before, it was always on their pre-renewal cabins. Due to low demand for seats on LY324, however, it was reassigned to a 787-800 (the smallest widebodies in El Al service) in mid-December.
In addition, on 8 February, eight days before the flight, I was informed that my El Al flight would be pushed forward by half an hour, from a 06:10 departure to a 05:40 one.
BEN GURION AIRPORT - TERMINAL 3
I arrived at the airport by 3:21, around two-and-a-half hours before the scheduled departure time. Although I pulled an all-nighter due to the flight's departure time, my preparations for the flights were rather messy, and I ended up missing my "comfort target" of arriving three hours before.
Although the roads on the way to the airport were practically deserted, this turned out not to be the case at the airport itself, which was full of people (despite this being a red-eye flight during the off-peak season!)
The lines made it harder to find the check in line for disabled passengers - two airline staff directed me to the far end of the check in hall, while the employee in the far end wasn't at their station, and tried to direct me to the center of the hall when they retured. However, another employee intervened, and I quickly made it 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.
Despite the chaotic check-in, security proceeded smoothly, and I was able to clear check-in, security, and passport control in 35 minutes. Regretfully, I didn't take much of a picture of the new exhibition on the corridor to the Terminal:
The LED clock in the entrance to Terminal 3 seemed to be replaced again, from its previous looping footage of synchronized swimming to a landscape which I suspect was AI-Generated.
As could already be inferred from the picture of the check-in hall, Terminal 3 was completely packed.
For a pre-departure breakfast, I went to the McDonalds at the food court and ordered the chicken nuggets (my usual for Terminal 3's branch). I opted to order them exclusively as I already treated myself to a larger and more hearty midnight meal ahead of the flight.
Immediately after finishing the meal, I washed my hands and went to the B concourse.
My flight departed from Gate B8, to which I arrived at 4:50, about ten minutes before boarding was due to begin.
THE FLIGHT ITSELF
Boarding began on time and I was among the first to board, reaching the plane at 5:04. 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.
Aircraft Information:
4X-EKC "Beit Shean"
Boeing 737-858 (serial number 29959, line number 314)
Delivered new to El Al on 31 July 1999; 26 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.
On the 737-800, El Al's economy class utilizes Collins Meridian seats having 17-inch seat width and 32-inch row pitch, in a 3-3 configuration, as is standard in narrowbody economy class. However, the two front-most rows of the economy cabin (21 and 22) have increased legroom seats with 34-inch pitch, and the emergency exit row seats have 38-inch pitch.
There are 25 rows of 6 seats each, making for a total of 150 seats in the cabin.
Each seat has one USB-A plug and one USB-C plug, both located near the bottom of the seat in front. These plugs are good for charging smartphones and tablets on the go, but laptop users get the short end of the stick. 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.
The seats themselves are fairly comfortable, and feature a headrest with both adjustable height and adjustable side-wings, as well as moveable armrests. However, the headrest is only wide enough to cradle my head when I'm not wearing my headphones, and doesn't sit well with a neck pillow.
Cabin views:
PSU detail:
My seat for this flight was seat 21K, the front-most right-hand window seat in the Economy class cabin. As a seat in the front-most row in the cabin, it has both 34-inch pitch and no other seat in front of it, making for a vastly increased legroom; for this reason, it is classified by El Al as an Extra Space seat, the higher of the two extra-premium seat categories. However, this legroom comes with two hypothetical drawbacks - the armrests are fixed and there is no device-holder. None of these proved to be disadvantageous in this flight, as the vast legroom makes it easy to come in and out of the seat and I didn't end up using the IFE anyway.
The vast legroom also had a personal advantage to me, 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 in "normal" economy class seats.
While a flight attendant did raise a concern about this blocking the passageway to the seat at first, she asked her superior about this and concluded I'm allowed to put it as close to the partition wall between Business and economy as possible (which is what I already did).
After this, I had a friendly chat with the flight attendant. I asked her whether El Al's forthcoming 737 MAX fleet would be equipped with seatback IFE screens. Her answer was that although she personally doesn't know, she assumes there would be, given that competing airlines equip their fleets with them. If this is true, it would be a very positive development, indicating that El Al is (correctly, in my opinion) aligning its hard product standards with the likes of Etihad and FlyDubai (both of which have a massive presence in Ben Gurion airport), rather than embarking a trajectory of "enshittifying" its product to match the European legacy airlines (thinner and cheaper seats, an all-economy cabin with a blocked-middle-seat business class, et cetera).
Boarding completed was sounded at 5:30, and pushback began at 5:32. Not long after, the safety video played:
Although visibility wasn't great due to it being nighttime, there were some spotting opportunities during pushback and taxiing.
For example, an ITA Airways A320, set to make the journey to Rome at around the same time I did:
4X-EDN, El Al's newest (and yet one of its oldest) 787-900s, recognizable for being (as of the writing of this report) El Al's only 787 with their newest livery, which foregoes the gradient gray-and-blue stripes of its previous livery to a matte blue stripe, and has the tailcone painted in blue (as an extension of the tail's bottom stripe - except on the 777s). Originally ordered by Air China in 2018, it was ultimately not taken up, and remained in storage for seven years until El Al acquired it; it retains Air China's interior configuration to this day (as of the writing of this report). For that reason, it isn't operated on El Al's "flagship" widebody routes to USA destinations, London-Heathrow, and Tokyo, but only to "secondary" widebody routes such as Bangkok, Phuket, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and Amsterdam).
Two Etihad A320s parked next to a British Airways one. This would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, when British Airways sent its intercontinental fleet, mostly 777s, to TLV, and UAE companies didn't operate to Israel at all, let alone have their most frequent line to it.
LZ-FRA, a Bulgaria Air A220-300, parked in between El Al 737s:
By 5:46, we were off the ground, taking off from Runway 08-26.
Takeoff views of Holon, Rishon LeZiyyon, Bat Yam, and Jaffa:
After takeoff, I took off my headphones, put on an eyemask from an amenity kit I saved from a previous flight, and tried to sleep. Remarkable, I fell asleep a few minutes after takeoff, and woke up at 8:38, 10 minutes or so before descent began. At this point, I switched my devices to Malmö time, which is also the time in Rome.
At first, the views were rather monotonous:
But they quickly made way to gorgeous views of the countryside in Lazio (the region Rome is in):
Rome-Termini railway station, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and the Domus Aurea, barely missing the Colosseum and the Forum Romanum:
Central Rome, including the Vila Borghese, Pantheon, and Trevi Fountain:
And the Olympic Village and Ponte Duca d'Aosta:
As well as the Eternal City's Not-so-Eternal Car-centric Suburbs:
And ecco - we finally landed in Fiumicino, touching down at 8:08.
The taxiing to the gate made for a perfect opportunity to do more spotting.
An Icelandair B757 parked in a remote stand, alongside many ITA and NEOS planes:
Two B787s, one Hainan and the other Etihad:
A united Airlines B767-400, with just a hint of a Qatar Airways A350-900:
Another 787, this one American Airlines':
And a farewell view of my plane, as well as of its ITA companion.
The landing and deplaning had two mishaps. The first one was that I accidentally forgot my shoulder bag (where my passport and boarding passes are) on the plane, though I quickly noticed it and successfully went back to recover it.
The second one owes itself to the structure of the inbound passport control to the Schengen Zone: there are two channels, one leading to the baggae claim and the other to connecting flights. I accidentally went through the baggage claim's passport control, and had to go to the groundside section of the airport to reach my connecting flight to Copenhagen. Thankfully, I had plenty of layover time, even without the flight being pushed early and landing early.
