Do not go gentile, into that good flight

On my way to the Next Big Bang conference in Los Angeles this morning, I took my maiden flight on El Al Airlines, the flagship carrier of Israel.

I had been warned by my good friend Ballu to expect much tighter security from El Al than your average airline. “When they say to show up two hours before your flight,” he said, “they mean show up two hours before."

Armed with this information, I arrived at Pearson at 5:50 for my 8:00 am flight. And sure enough, the security was intense. Before I arrived at the ticket counter, I was pre-screened by an agent who asked where I stayed last night, where my bags were last night, whether I had left my bags unattended—all the usual questions but with a higher degree of scrutiny and specificity.

I was also informed that I would have to surrender my carry-on luggage and that it would be returned to me at the boarding gate just before flight time. After I received my boarding pass, I was asked to follow another agent to a private area in the arrivals level. There, my shoes were x-rayed. After grabbing some breakfast, I went through the regular security gate where I removed my shoes a second time for x-rays.

Then, at the boarding gate, El Al had set up a second security area complete with metal detector and x-rays. I removed my shoes a third time for inspection.

I’m actually not complaining about the security measures—they’re perfectly understandable given the circumstances. If anything, I felt very secure boarding that plane. On other airlines, I sometimes feel like I can find the loopholes, the little ways to get around the system. I wonder why the procedures are half-assed enough to be annoying but not really secure. Not El Al. You’d have to be a planning genius to get something on board one of their planes.

Further, all the El Al representatives were perfectly polite and they applied the security measures even-handedly with one litle exception: I saw a 90-year old Hasid get a free pass by the second security gate. I admit part of me was thinking, “Are you kidding me? You could hide a small militia in that beard of his.” I wisely kept this thought to myself as I did not relish the thought of a full cavity search.

The flight itself was very comfortable. I was served a meal that was both delicious and approved by Rabbi Levin of the Kashruth Council of Canada. There was one thing I found somewhat peculiar. After all that stringent security, I was given a metal knife with my meal.

My theory is that the knife is a dare to would-be hijackers. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the flight attendants were krav maga experts. That 100-pound stewardess? Her body language is screaming, “You even think about storming the cockpit with your cutlery and I will snap you in two like an afikomen.”

I hope there’s gefilte fish on my return flight as well.