El-Al security on non-Israel-bound flights is a bit too much
… if this story by Vincent Cheung is mostly true (I should add that I disapprove his own extra racial profiling.)
Then I see that in fact they opened up the router (which was in its box) and by doing so they voided the warranty on my brand new router!!!! (the warning sticker was broken)… Who cracks open routers!!!! The only reason I noticed was because they didn’t put it back together properly - one of the reset buttons was constantly being pressed.
That’s absurd. What he describes might be excusable or adequate for an Israel-bound flights, but not a leg in a code sharing one. I usually don’t go through these checks because I carry an Israeli passport, but then again, I avoid El-Al when possible. This is due to two main reasons: 1) they monopolize Israeli traffic by limiting competition using questionable/unfair means so I don’t want to give them my business and 2) they are always more expensive than the alternatives (at-least in my experience.) This story may add a third reason because I hate it when my luggage is opened.
That said, what is El-Al’s alternative? A lax (or lax LAX in this case :) check on the first leg and a more rigorous one on the second? After all, El-Al is a target on all its flights regardless of where it is bound. Maybe El-Al should only fly Israel-bound flights. No clear answer here.
In any case, it’s always a good idea to check who is the operator on a code-sharing flight — they all are these days. As an Israeli, I wouldn’t feel terribly comfortable in a Syriaair flight, you see.
January 5th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
are you back to the land of fog and damp?
January 6th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Well, I was kinda joking about being singled out b/c I was Chinese. Just funny from my perspective as throughout the whole process, everyone around me (checking-in, security, gate, and on the plane) were jewish and speaking in Hebrew and everything on the plane was in Hebrew and I stuck out like a sore thumb, a sore thumb that at least knew to keep his mouth shut.
January 9th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
You can never assume race means anything with Jews.
This guy is 100% born Japanese, is a Jew, Frum, and teaches Hebrew:
http://www.ts-cyberia.net/
There are a bunch of Chinese-Jews here in San Jose and down in Los Angeles. The idea of Jewish equating with ‘white’ is pretty silly and mostly a left over stereotype. El-Al security has quite a chore because you cannot assume at all that 1) people who are not white aren’t jewish & 2) If they speak hebrew they must be jewish. Neither are true enough to rely upon for security purposes.
It is important to point out that Jewish affiliation is part blood/race, part ethnic identity, and a religious identity. Thus you can have a somebody that is part-morrocan part japanese israeli-born hebrew fluent convert.
That is 100% jewish by blood.
FUN WORLD !
January 11th, 2006 at 11:07 am
I try to fly El-Al whenever I can.
true, they have more seats per given plane which means it is more crowded on flights, but the food is so much better than other airlines. That is the only airline which I actually wait for the rice and chicken lunch on the Munich-Tel aviv flights I take so often…
I know I don’t hold a popular view, but I think many people just enjoy speaking bad about El-Al, especially Israelis.
N.
p.s. as for the prices, you just have to know where to look for and when. I just booked 2 2-way flights Munich-Tel Aviv with El-Al for the price of a single 2-way charter flight.