>every time we go down south to see my wife's
>family, i run into more and more Israelis.
El Al just started three times a week non-stops between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. This story notes the "bad timing" and quotes Meyer L. Bodoff, president and chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, who says southern Nevada has the fastest growing Jewish community in North America.
http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2006/07/21/tourism.html
Tourism and Travel Israeli airline upbeat about new Los Angeles route
By Richard Velotta / Staff Writer
When Singapore Airlines inaugurated nonstop service between Hong Kong and Las Vegas in 2002, little did company executives know that SARS would put a damper on tourism from Asia and that the outbreak of war in the Middle East the following spring ultimately would make the route unprofitable.
Asian tourists simply decided to play it safe and not travel to the United States when the war and the outbreak of SARS were escalating.
Singapore discontinued flights less than a year after they began.
Now, El Al Airlines may be confronted with a similar scenario, even though the Israeli airline was looking at belting a marketing home run with its plan to offer three nonstop flights a week between Los Angeles International Airport and Tel Aviv.
The flights began earlier this week, days after tensions rose when Israel bombed Lebanon, retaliating against Hezbollah guerrillas, and the Mideast quickly grew increasingly more unstable.
Talk about bad timing.
Bill Gale, the West Coast regional manager for El Al, the flagship air carrier for Israel, has good reason to be enthusiastic about what his airline is doing.
The new flights are operating Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays year round, and Gale said they'd likely be marketed by travel agencies in Southern Nevada as well as in Phoenix and San Diego because of their close proximity to Los Angeles International Airport.
"There's no doubt in my mind that people in Las Vegas would much rather catch a quick flight over to L.A. and pick up our nonstop to Tel Aviv rather than go by way of the East Coast," Gale said.
His assessment was quickly validated by Meyer L. Bodoff, president and chief executive of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.
"I just heard about it(the new flights) from one of our members who canceled his flight through New York and rebooked on the nonstop from Los Angeles," Bodoff said.
Currently most travelers to Israel book by way of New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport via El Al or on Continental Airlines, which flies to Tel Aviv by way of Newark, N.J., or on Delta Air Lines through Atlanta.
Gale figures that travelers who go through Los Angeles would save about 10 hours in travel time and layovers taking the new route.
El Al's U.S. gateways to Israel are at JFK, Newark, Miami and Chicago's O'Hare International, which will see its capacity rise from two to four flights a week in late October.
In addition to the three nonstop flights from Los Angeles that began flying Sunday, the airline will have two more from LAX that make a stop in Toronto.
El Al's Los Angeles flights have some convenient departure and arrival times, leaving L.A. at 12:15 p.m., arriving in Tel Aviv at 12:45 p.m., the next day. The return leaves Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport at 1:15 a.m., arriving in Los Angeles at 6:45 a.m., effectively knocking out an extra night in a hotel.
The flight abroad takes 13 1/2 hours and the return, 14 1/2 hours.
El Al is using twin-engine Boeing 777 jets on the route, configured with six first-class seats, 40 in an upgraded business class and 237 coach seats. The airline is offering introductory-rate seats for as low as $1,259 round trip.
Planes have inflight WiFi service and seat-back entertainment systems for a comfortable trip.
Gale was reluctant to talk about flight security he doesn't want to scare away customers and lose business the way Singapore did in 2003. But the reality is that El Al has earned a reputation of being one of the safest carriers in the air because of its attention to security precautions.
El Al has ticketing relationships with Delta, United and American airlines and a code-share agreement with Delta. That means Las Vegas passengers should be able to find compatible flights linking to the El Al Tel Aviv flight on United, which offers seven nonstop flights a day between McCarran and Los Angeles International.
El Al has business relationships with Century Travel and Prestige Travel in Las Vegas and several local travelers go directly to Israeli travel agents based in Los Angeles to book their flights.
Gale said there is no legalized gambling in Israel, yet the people are culturally responsive to casinos.
"Las Vegas will be an attractive destination because they love the glamor and the gambling and the food and the shopping," Gale said.
On the business end, Gale anticipates a good level of commercial business travelers attending major high-tech, jewelry and diamond trade shows in Las Vegas. Israel produces one of the world's largest international delegations to the annual International Consumer Electronics Show.
And what about the market from Southern Nevada to Israel?
"Southern Nevada has the fastest-growing Jewish community in North America," Bodoff said.
He estimated the Jewish population in Clark County at 75,000,
"Right in the middle of the current crisis, we have had three of our(federation) members in Israel," Bodoff said. "There's a very sizable Israeli community here and the Jewish population is growing, but there are other faiths that view the area as their holy land."
Bodoff thinks the LA-Tel Aviv flights are an important development for Las Vegans and he even thinks there could be support for a nonstop to Tel Aviv from Las Vegas some day. Gale said that isn't in the cards right now because there simply isn't a large enough market in Southern Nevada yet.
"Maybe not something every day," Bodoff admitted. "But maybe they ought to try one every couple of weeks."
Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at(702) 259-4061 or by e-mail at velotta at lasvegassun.com.