Qantas extends El Al partnership

The Australian and Israeli flag-carriers are boosting their alliance to include flights via Tokyo.

By David Flynn, September 24 2024

Qantas and El Al already enjoy a codeshare relationship on the Israeli airline’s routes from Bangkok, Hong Kong and Johannesburg to Tel Aviv, and now Tokyo-Tel Aviv is being added to the map.

October 27 sees El Al’s LY91/LY92 flights on the 13-hour route carry a Qantas flight number (as QF5014/QF5013), under which Qantas Frequent Flyer members can earn the full amount of Qantas Points and status credits, at the same amount as if they were flying on a red-tailed Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

(Travel booked onto El Al’s LY91 or LY92 but with your QFF number listed in the reservation earns significantly fewer points and zero status credits, which is also the case on Emirates flights under their native EK or codeshared QF numbers.)

Business class passengers along with Qantas Platinum One, Platinum and Gold frequent flyers also enjoy access to El Al’s flagship lounge at Tel Aviv before their return flight, again provided they are booked under a QF flight number.

Of course, much more eagerly awaited are those long-promised direct flights between Tel Aviv and Australia.

El Al previously announced these would begin as Tel Aviv-Melbourne by June 2024, with three Boeing 787 Dreamliner services per week on a 15-hour route.

“We look forward to launching our first ever non-stop flights to Melbourne as we position Victoria as Israel’s gateway to Australia,” said El Al CEO Dina Ben Tal Ganancia in March 2023, as the pandemic receded and new horizons beckoned.

At the time, El Al inked a Letter of Intent with the Victorian Government supporting the initiative “to strengthen business connections and create jobs locally.”

It was estimated the airline would deliver a $48 million annual boost to the state’s economy.

El Al's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was set to pioneer the non-stop route between Tel Aviv and Melbourne.

Testing the waters

In 2019, El Al’s then-regional director for Asia, Oceania and South Africa, Yoav Weiss, spoke to Executive Traveller about an intended trial of the Tel Aviv-Melbourne route to run in 2020, until the pandemic changed the shape of air travel around the world.

“The trial consists of two major elements,” Weiss said. “The first is the commercial one, whether there will be demand and whether people would be willing to pay a premium for flying non-stop.”

“The Australian market is a very good market for Israel, there is a very big Jewish and Israeli community in both Sydney and Melbourne.”

“We have a lot of business coming from Australia, flying with Qantas via Bangkok or Hong Kong, and also via Johannesburg.”

“But it wasn’t until we received our brand new Boeing 787 that we could consider a non-stop operation to make it all the way ‘down under’. This idea was going around for a while, and we decided to give it a try.”

El Al's non-stop test flights to Melbourne will span an average of 17 hours.

The three special flights would serve as “an operational trial, to see if planning of the flying routes is possible to execute in real time, what will be the fuel consumption, what will be the load consumption and so on,” Weiss explains.

“So in that respect, the operational trial is maybe the most important part of this trial, and alongside with the commercial part these three flights should give us a good picture of that aspect.”

Weiss said that while most of El Al’s Melbourne-based passengers on this handful of flights ended their journey at Tel Aviv, an on-going scheduled service would realise the city’s role as a connecting hub to the rest of Europe.

“El Al offers many, many destinations in Europe, most of them on a double daily basis, and Ben Gurion Airport has a very smooth connecting process.”

Inside El Al’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner

London-based design firm PriestmanGoode helped shape El Al’s Dreamliners with new seats and cabins, along with an updated livery to better reflect the airline’s flag-carrier status.