The recent announcement that EasyJet, the low cost (= cheap but nasty) British airline, was planning to introduce a $100 and up flight between Tel Aviv and Luton has prompted a relatively quick (for them) response from Israels favourite carrier ELAL.

This morning, El Al announced it will start selling its own low-cost, no-frills tickets on its regular scheduled flights, with services such as meals, earphones and baggage offered as extras. The move is part of an experiment to create a product similar to that of the low-cost airlines, such as EasyJet, in an effort to compete.

Bare-bones tickets will be offered only for tourist-class seats not, of course, in the more upscale business and first classes. The number of discounted seats in tourist class will be limited and will be concentrated in a single area rather than scattered throughout the cabin. This new product will be introduced gradually on all of El Al’s regular scheduled flights

Those of us who fly ELAL, even on a semi frequent basis, already know that the concepts of service and frills are somewhat alien to Israels national carrier. So, we should probably be pleased that at long last we will have the opportunity to finally get what we pay for.

I have to wonder how many people will actually fly Tel Aviv to Sao Paulo or Los Angeles without inflight service? What if they don’t fill all those cheap seats? Will they fill them with normal fare paying passengers? What if they seat me, with my glass of white wine and special chicken meal in the middle of all those folks who are going without?

Prize for the best comment so far probably goes to Royal Jordanian Airline’s Israel director who said she would not recommend such a move to her bosses in Amman. “I can already imagine Israelis boarding the planes with picnic boxes.” That, I think, is a Kodak moment we can all do without.

My real worry though is that they don’t appear to have yet thought about the two other things that they can charge for – Legroom and The Toilets.

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