Last month, El Al announced that it would partner with Delta and work to join the SkyTeam Alliance. The announcement meant that its days as a partner of American, Alaska, and JetBlue were numbered.
And indeed, El Al is no longer selling connections and codeshares with American, though Alaska and JetBlue are still being sold for now.
And as of today, El Al is now selling connections with Delta:
Passengers connecting between Delta and El Al can get their boarding passes and check their bags through to their final destination.
El Al also shares that they will offer reciprocal codeshare and earn/burn mileage benefits with Delta “early next year.”
In other news, Ben Gurion Airport is finally opening secure transit for connection in Tel Aviv.
It’s something that I told El Al ownership would be critical to achieve in order to join an alliance. With El Al trying to join Skyteam, this is an obvious move.
If you fly El Al, you won’t have to go through security again in Ben Gurion.
I have to imagine that El Al will try to get Delta added to that exemption so that they can carry Delta passengers to other destinations from Tel Aviv.
El Al is selling connections to several destinations:
You can fly to places like Athens, Dubai and Sharm-el-Sheikh on El Al:
Hopefully, we’ll also see El Al sell connections with free extended stopovers in Tel Aviv, as IcelandAir and TAP Portugal do.
Will you book any Delta-El Al connections or El Al connections through Tel Aviv?
HT: chff and yandmk
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35 Comments On "Goodbye AA, Hello Delta! El Al Now Selling Delta Connections And Updates Reciprocity Timeline; International Secure Transit Now Bookable Via Ben Gurion!"
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At least DL to LY in JFK are both T4
No need to reclear security as needed to be until now
Interesting that elal is selling less than the MCT.
Also I doubt Delta will get a security exemption as their ex USA flights don’t undergo Israeli approved security to the same extent (interviews, baggage screening etc)
I once connected from AA to Elal in BCN and we had to do a whole mini security check at the gate in BCN. I don’t think TLV would want “unscreened” passangers roaming the secure side of the airport…
My guess is the 3 hour MCT refers to non-El Al flights.
If Delta tells El Al they need secure transit to push the alliance through, they’ll find a way to make it happen.
When you connect in most European airports you need to reclear security but not customs, why should TLV be different?
You’re probably right about the MCT, since your screenshot above shows a 2h5m transfer
The US doesn’t have secure transit, so I doubt it will be a deal breaker.
El Al has to offer something of vakue to Delta, not vice versa.
Delta does not need El Al.
Will Elal metal flights show from Elal and Delta on AMEX travel so I can use the 35% back with delta as the chosen airline?
I have a flight to Tel Aviv booked through two separate tickets. One is a Delta flight to Boston and another is El Al from Boston to Tel Aviv. I don’t suppose there’s anyway to get these connected so our luggage can go straight through? Thanks!
You can try asking Delta at checkin and see if they’ll do that.
Doesn’t the US always require to claim your baggage and check it in again?
Not domestic to international.
So I guess everyone is thinking the same thing.
How can we skiplagg to tlv!
Can you even imagine Israeli immigration interrogating you about why you’re skipping your flight to Turkey, Egypt, or the UAE…
The Israel’s understand what savings means…
I wonder why codeshare and mileage wont start till next year? Why not right away?
Heavy logistics to get approval and implement those.
Dan- do you think this will open up any possible skip lagging opportunities? Hope El Al won’t sue skiplagged.com like United did lol
Thought the same, let’s hope we’ll get some great hidden-city fares this way, or interesting one-way tlv stopover itineraries that will take us back and forth.
We don’t really have where to continue from tlv, do we?
Minimum connection 3 hours?
In the examples above, El Al is much less than that, probably because you don’t need to reclear security on El Al.
Can’t wait ELAL should finally join an alliance, would be great to share status benefits when flying domestic with delta, flying international with skyteam partners and flying to Israel with ELAL. hope it’ll happen soon!
Thanks so much for the article.
One step closer to normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia. Only one more step till you can book a delta flight with one leg on Elal and one leg on Saudia.
Does it mean anything in terms of honoring each others status or earning/redeeming points?
It will, early next year.
“and indeed, El Al is no longer selling connections and codeshares with American” El Al is still selling connections and codeshares with american.
The bigger hurdle to joining skyteam isn’t anything DL-related. It’s going to be Saudi Arabia
We all know that it’s just a matter of time before Saudi Arabia makes the same peace deals that UAE and others have made. It’s a “when, not if” situation at this point.
But technically on the surface, Saudi Arabia still has to pretend that Israel is their enemy, so there’s no chance El Al will join the alliance until then. Once the geopolitical deal is in place, El Al will join SkyTeam in less time than it takes to clear TLV security.
3 Hour MCT is excessive.
TLV is not that big!
As of today ELAL is still selling their codeshare on AA to Europe to continue to TLV with Elal flights, When will this change?
Will be possible to fly on Delta to Europe & continue with Elal? They will compete with Skyteam Partners flying to TLV like Virgin from LHR or KLM from AMS ??
If this really works out and TLV become a transfer hub to the middle east wouldn’t that put up the price of direct flights to Israel?
Is this new partnership a good reason to get a Delta card for miles?
Dan
Do you think this will have any bearing on the Qantas/El Al alliance ?
I still have delta miles today, from when I flew Elal in 2004.
Delta also sells LY flights to TLV with stops in CDG, for example.
What About Chicago is it on the list of destination