Connecting in Europe to Israel has long meant switching to a narrowbody plane for a relatively long flight. If you flew across the pond in a lie-flat business class seat, it also meant switching to a coach seat with a blocked middle seat, which is somehow also allowed to be marketed as business class.
But times are changing. Air France has long served Tel Aviv with narrowbody A320s, but starting on 3/28 they will upgauge to a widebody A330-200.
On 6/13 they will add a 2nd daily flight between Paris and Tel Aviv with a widebody A350-900.
Both of those planes feature lie-flat business class seats and a premium economy section for the 5 hour flight between Paris and Tel Aviv. That represents an increase in the value of Air France, Delta, and Virgin Atlantic miles as a business class award on Air France will now feature true business class for the entire journey.
Clearly, Air France is betting on a big recovery in traffic to Israel as that nation races to be the first to reach herd immunity.
Air France will also have extra widebody planes lying around due to COVID-19, so it makes sense to deploy them on a route with increasing widebody competition. After all, airlines like British Airways, Emirates, Iberia, Swiss, Turkish, and Virgin Atlantic are all selling widebody connections to Israel. At this point the options are to upgauge or get left behind. Are you paying attention Lufthansa?
This will also help Air France compete with El Al, which offers a mix of narrowbody 737 and widebody 787 service between Paris and Tel Aviv.
Are you more likely to fly Air France to Israel after they start using widebody aircraft to Tel Aviv?
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29 Comments On "Air France Will Fly Widebody Planes To Tel Aviv!"
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Has anyone else stopped getting the SMS texts? (I signed up through groupme) Thank you
Yes.
Yes.
finally !! in my opinion if your connecting to narrow body business class then its better to fly coach nonstop…..
Disagree. The wide body is always on the overnight hop to Europe which still beats overnight in coach.
Dan, slightly off-topic.
For Stock investing purposes, which airlines do you feel are the safest best?
As a whole, the airline industry is still down significantly, and we hope with the vaccine and time, most will eventually turn around sooner than later.
For those of us not in the know, it’s difficult to get a feel for which ones will do well and which will be unable to recover.
There are many articles on this and would love to hear your thoughts.
“Slightly?”
Spirit (I’m not kidding). They are relocating and expanding their corporate headquarters to Dania Beach, doubling their aircraft in the next 10 years, just rolled out a new mileage program, and look to be promising among the competition. Your guess is as good as mine.
SpaceX. Symble TBA
if that is elon musk company, than the symbol is SPCE
Most definitely more likely is try it
Not really. Prefer nonstop flights, or just connecting using United via EWR
Great news ! Now best skyteam miles to Israel….
So we now have BA, occasionally Turkish,Swiss, Air Europe (still alive ?) Air France with wide body stopover to Israel
Swiss has actually been flying for years with wide body planes and full business class.
Sometimes the planes to TLV are larger than the one’s to JFK
aeroflot flys widebodys to TLV but is not a recommended airline.
SWISS often changes to a 321 for one or both daily flights, especially in slow season.
Usually not, the connection to tlv is usually very full. They use the a321 once a month on motzai shabbos.
The flights from NYC to ZRH are usually empty in economy and full in business
There are months that they schedule the morning flight into TLV as a 321 every day. Those are the period when they run special low fares for business class ZRH-TLV.
The Virgin Atlantic experience is hard to compete with plus CDG isn’t a great connection airport.
Heathrow isn’t either
Can you get a good use of miles flying air France business to Israel without hefty fuel charges?
This!!!
So what
Many of us rely on Dansdeals to guide us in getting the best points deals to Israel, often in Business class. It must really sting to break your trip just as you are falling asleep and then, 3 hours later see you have a regular, non lie down seat. For me, those last hours are make it or break it.
done this route many times.
tried to take a reasonable flight from tlv and then stop in paris, grab food, maybe even overnight than lie flat on either AF, DL, AA
i hope this wont cause a devaluation
got this routing for 53,000 miles in the past
Because of jetlag issues it is much harder flying EAST, from the USA.
what are the current covid rules for foreigners getting into paris or where can i look them up ?
I’m am stilll getting sms for each new post
NO AF FLIGHTS TO TLV 2021 !!!
If only Israel would open up for foreign nationals we would be more than delighted to try it