ISRAIR AIRLINE
 

We will be visiting Israel this coming November with Gate 1 Travel. They use Israir Airline and we would like to know if anyone has flown with them and what their impression of the airline, etc., is. Thank you for any and all info.

I've never flown with them, but I haven't heard anything bad about them either. I am an Israeli.

If you want to see what they say about themselves you can look here:
http://www.israirairlines.com/about.asp

I've flown on Israir a few times, but London-Tel Aviv routes only. I found their equipment and service satisfactory--neither above or below what you would consider as average (esp vs US carriers). Food wasn't that great, but who cares these days? Seating was slightly tight, not much reclining but better than chartered flights. Can't recall much about in-flight entertainment or duty-free shopping, as we were on red-eye.

Got an impression it was more popular with Israeli passengers visiting European countries rather than Europeans going to Israel, but it may be different for their north american routes.

My daughter flew Israir airlines - last summer she thought it was fine; food was good and flight attendants were nice. However, this summer she said a few seats were broken and it reminded her of Spirt Airlines (not one of our favorite experiences).

But I'll add that we flew El Al to Israel and the seat in front of my husband was broken causing it to fall back onto his knees (he's over 6 ft. tall). Fortunately, the located us two free seats in another part of the plane. Things can happen.

we flew Israir from Eliat back to TA and our favorite part of the trip was the woman who brought her dog on board (not in a cage, only sometime of leash) and let him walk up and down the aisle. We have a photo of the dog at the head of the aisle "Drinks will be served shortly.."

I have flown twice with them, once to Barcelona and back and once back from Rhodes (Greece). While the flight from Rhodes was OK, the Trip to Barcelona was horrible. The engine choked during the take-off from Israel, and we had to wait for 8 hours in the airport, and nobody was there to tell us when are we leaving. Only few hours later they bought us drinks and a snack, and a supper later. Flight back was delayed by 2 hours. Most of their planes are run-down used planes bought/leased from El-Al (mostly) and sometimes from other airlines. Several other similiar incidents were published in the Israeli press (only those ended up with the passengers suing Israir, according to talk-backs others suffered without suing) .

If you are flying from the US, that's a long flight, so I would suggest adding another 100USD and flying El-Al/Continental/Delta (Operated by Delta if flying from Atlanta, or by El-Al if flying from New York/Newark) or through Europe with a European company.

Isra-Air is basically a company which does most of its business doing charters, so the US line which is supposed to be a "regular line" sometimes gets delayed too, a-la charter flight (there were reports of such incidents in the local media as well).

Elad.