For the better part of two and a half years, El Al Israel Airlines wore the mantle of hero. When every other major international carrier quietly slipped out of Ben Gurion Airport’s skies following the October 7th massacre, El Al stayed. So did Israel’s three other domestic carriers: Air Haifa, Arkia, and Israir. But it was El Al, by far the largest of the four, that became the primary lifeline. It flew. It filled planes. It charged a premium, and travelers paid without complaint, because El Al was the dominant game in town and the one passengers counted on most to get them home.

That goodwill, earned flight by flight and shekel by shekel over more than two years of wartime operations, has been squandered with breathtaking speed since hostilities with Iran resumed on February 28th, 2026. What was once a lifeline has become a source of chaos, confusion, and heartbreak for thousands of travelers left stranded, ignored, and screaming in the terminal halls of Ben Gurion Airport. This is the story of how El Al dropped the ball at the worst possible moment and why it matters far beyond the inconvenience of missed flights.

From Lifeline to Liability

It would be unfair not to acknowledge El Al’s track record since October 7, 2023. While United, Delta, American, Air Canada, and virtually every other international carrier suspended service, Israel’s four domestic airlines kept flying. El Al bore the greatest share of that responsibility and, to its credit, largely met it. The airline was widely regarded as the most dependable of the four. For all its well-documented flaws in customer service and IT infrastructure, El Al performed when it had to get planes in the air.

That makes what has happened since February 28th all the more damning. El Al was, in theory, uniquely positioned to manage this crisis. It had the experience, the infrastructure, the customer base, and the trust. And yet, during this crisis, it was Air Haifa, operating a modest fleet of 72-seat prop planes, that emerged as the carrier travelers could actually count on. When the largest Israeli airline was unreachable, and its flights were evaporating, the smallest one was quietly getting people out. That comparison should sting. Instead, what travelers encountered was an airline that could not answer its phones, whose WhatsApp support system was effectively useless, and whose operational decisions left thousands of passengers in terminal limbo.

At the heart of El Al’s communication failure is one misguided decision: routing all customer service through WhatsApp. In normal times, that is an annoyance. In a war-driven travel crisis with thousands of stranded passengers desperately seeking rebooking, it is a catastrophe. Passengers report waiting hours, sometimes overnight, for an agent to respond, only for that agent to disconnect before resolving anything. In multiple documented cases, El Al reached out via WhatsApp to offer an alternative flight; passengers replied promptly, only to be told by email that they had not responded.

Travelers without smartphones or WhatsApp........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)