Continental’s former CEO Larry Kellner, who was sacked for refusing to merge with United, was quoted as saying that Newark-Tel Aviv was their most profitable route. USAirways’ president Scott Kirby called Philadephia-Tel Aviv among the most lucrative routes in their network, before American bought USAirways and axed the route citing alleged poor route performance. Mr Kirby jumped ship and is now President of United.
Competition on the route is heating up.
Last month I wrote about United moving one of their 2 daily flights from Newark to Tel Aviv from a Boeing 777-200 (772) to a 777-300ER (77W), a clear sign of the route’s competition and success.
The 77W will have significantly improved business class seating, though significantly worse coach seating. Savvy coach passengers should opt for the afternoon 772 with its wider coach seat. Business passengers should opt for the evening 77W with direct aisle access for all seats.
Last week I wrote that El Al will finally launch lie-flat direct aisle access reverse herringbone seating with the 787s that will come online in the 3rd quarter of this year.
Air Canada already offers lie-flat direct aisle access reverse herringbone seating on their 787s from Toronto.
Delta, which had been first to Tel Aviv with direct aisle access seating, realized that they were falling behind in the arms race for the Tel Aviv route with their regular herringbone style seating.
Regular herringbone seats are angled towards the aisle with the middle 2 seats facing away from each other.
Reverse herringbone seats are angled away from the aisle with the middle 2 seats facing towards each other. This is a significantly better layout than herringbone.
Effective 10/29/17 Delta will switch the JFK-Tel Aviv route from a 777-200LR (77L) to an A330-300 (333). That means business class will move from herringbone to reverse herringbone, a nice upgrade.
However the number of business class seats will drop from 37 to 34 on Delta’s once daily flight.
Compare that to United which currently operates the route with 100 daily business class seats. That will climb to 110 in May thanks to 60 business class seats on the 77W.
Delta coach will move from a 3-3-3 configuration on the 777 to a 2-4-2 configuration on the A330-300, which is surely better than the 3-4-3 configuration found on United’s 77W and arguably better tha the 3-3-3 coach configuration found on United’s 772.
For those keeping score at home:
United 772 EWR-TLV: Operates twice daily through 5/4 and once daily thereafter.
50 business class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration.
72 economy plus seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
145 economy minus seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
United 77W EWR-TLV: Operates once daily effective 5/5.
60 business class seats in a 1-2-1 Polaris configuration.
102 economy plus seats in a 3-4-3 configuration
204 economy minus seats in a 3-4-3 configuration
Delta 77L JFK-TLV: Operates once daily through 10/28.
37 business class seats in a 1-2-1 herringbone configuration.
36 economy comfort plus seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
218 economy uncomfort minus seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
Delta 333 JFK-TLV: Operates once daily effective 10/29.
34 business class seats in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration.
40 economy comfort plus seats in a 2-4-2 configuration
219 economy uncomfort minus seats in a 2-4-2 configuration
El Al 789, routes and dates TBD.
32 business class seats in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration.
28 premium economy seats in a 2-3-2 configuration
222 subpremium economy seats in a 3-3-3 configuration
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15 Comments On "Delta Is The Latest Airline To Improve Seating From JFK To Tel Aviv"
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This kinda post could be significantly improved with pictures of different layouts. 🙂
Thank you so much for this Likut. Super helpful!
Economy uncomfort 😂
A very big plus that elal has over other airlines is accommodation for lap babies. Elal has almost triple the bulkhead seats that are available for infants as a bassinet and if they are full and there are extra seats on the plane they will try to give them to you. That has been my experience. Other airlines most notably delta saves the bulkhead seats for people who need walking assistance or those that bring along a pet on the plane and only after that will they allow them to be used for children in short if you are flying with children the only airline to choose would be elal.
Avoid the UA B77W in coach, the 10 across seating is torturous with only a 16 1/2″ wide seat and hardly any armrest room. For 9-12 hours!
@@Yehuda: I have a pic of the new UA77W
Its a shame delta is so dam stingy. The flight via pesos is wayyy too much. And they barley release via flying blue.
Thanks Dan for the update can’t wait to use my AMEX points
For delta business
@As good: Keep waiting – that is never going to happen unless you want to spend 190K or 225K ONE WAY. DL releases ZERO seats at the lower levels on their equipment. Used to be you could score one very close to departure but that isn’t the case anymore.
The seat change is a huge upgrade — those were the business seats on the 747 which were much more comfortable. Problem with the reduction of seats is that means seats at the cheaper (Z) inventory. Often times LY or UA are cheaper than DL because DL has already sold out or zeroed out the Z inventory
In Israel about 3 weeks ago I happened to meet a UA marketing exec. He was there to develop business with Israeli companies. I expressed my disappointment with UA’s move to 3-4-3 on the 777. He acknowledged it’s a comfort downgrade for most pax. He said demand for TLV is so strong they expect easily to fill every new seat added in coach.
The real question is, why are they cutting capacity when everyone else is incresing??
If this route is so lucrative as you say then why is United cutting down from two flights a day to one?
They are increasing capacity. As Dan writes, one of the two daily UA flights is changing to a 777-300 with about 90 more seats than the current 777-200.
Flew for the first time on Delta’s A330 in Economy Comfort Plus TLV-JFK December 6, 2017. The improvement in comfort was minimal compared to the 777. However, the ride was noticeably rougher than the 777. Could be the conditions on this specific flight. Flew at 32,000 until we were bouncing all over the place over Ireland and pilot went up to 36,000 and things calmed down. I looked it up, and there are flight forum discussions suggesting that turbulence is more pronounced on the A330 compared to the 777. Any thoughts?
Fly El Al or United if you prefer Boeing…