El Al exclusively tells DansDeals, that they have just begun installation of new privacy screens for their seat-back entertainment system. It will be installed on all of the airline’s Dreamliners within the next 2 months.
The new system was designed by El Al and has now been approved by the FAA as safe for use on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
With the new privacy screens, you will no longer have to worry about your kids viewing mature-rated content playing on someone else’s seat-back entertainment system. The privacy screen is designed so that even if you’re sitting in economy, your neighboring seatmate won’t see your screen.
El Al’s entertainment systems already have parental controls, but this way, you also won’t have to worry about what people are watching around your kids.
Adults also won’t have to see what people around them are watching.
At night, the privacy screens are 100% effective, so you’ll also get a better night’s sleep, even if your seatmate uses the system all night long. In the daytime, it’s not as effective, but it will still offer privacy.
The airline also offers prayer direction and times in their seatback entertainment system and even offers Artscroll loaded iPads, available by requesting one from a flight attendant. Bathrooms now even have ritual washing cups available as well!
El Al may be losing their monopoly on the US-Israel market on the Ides of March, but you have to love the direction the airline has taken since being purchased by the Rozenberg family over COVID.
Built-in privacy screens are a pretty cool innovation! What do you think of El Al’s new privacy screens? What other improvements do you hope to see from the airline?
Leave a Reply
93 Comments On "DansDeals Exclusive: El Al Dreamliners Will Have The First Ever Privacy Screens In The Sky!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
Brilliant!!
Pretty impressive. Thanks Dan for sharing!
It would be nice to be able to use the seat back screen as a second screen when working. Although, this could only happen now with the privacy screens for multiple reasons.
Would be nice to be able to plug in your own USB with preloaded Jewish kosher videos, for example, if you want to allow your kids to watch, but only preferred material. I can understand why that wasn’t allowed until now and why that still may be an issue/security concern.
No airlines allow that, due to concerns over what people would play on the screen.
Even with a privacy screen, it’s too much of a risk.
Yes, that does make sense, unfortunately.
You can probably use a relatively cheap tablet like a kindle fire to watch Jewish kosher vids via USB or pre-downloaded
Wow. So amazing all the things they have! I had no idea
Lol, was on the plane THIS week and thinking to myself……
Why don’t all the screens have privacy protectors?!
Also I was amazed to hear that elal has small cups in the bathrooms to wash the hands
I was dazzled to see those tizzy bitzy little metal cups in the bathrooms yesterday, chained up to the wall. They are effective for child’s sized hands but still a nice touch. I am thrilled to hear about the privacy screens homing soon/ My precious grandchildren are flying ElAl for Pesach and I was alarmed anticipating what they might see on those screens
Yocheved, rest assured that your grandchildren will be exposed one way or another… Part of life.
Can they have siddur and china’s (chayenu) on the screens
There’s a Chinese version?
Just love flying them. Hope the prices go down. Everyone should have a fair chance to experience the new Elal.
Now, if only they ended their Boeing-only policy, and started buying Airbus planes with 18″ wide economy seats, I would think of continuing to fly with them. As long as this is not the case, it’s back to Delta once they are back.
Seat width has nothing to do with airplane manufacturers. In any case, their flying exclusively 787s on long haul make it better than competitors flying 777s with 10 rows abreast.
It actually is related to the aircraft manufacturer and you’ll be surprised to know how much of a deciding factor it is when ordering planes, the A350 is 4in. wider at armrest height than the 787 (its closest competitor). Economy class is 9 abreast in both, It may not make a big difference in economy but when designing modern day herringbone seating and privacy partitions in business class 4in. can be a dealbreaker.
Where the squeeze hurts is in economy and the 787 is superior to the modern configuration of Airbus aircraft, specifically because it is narrower.
I would genuinely appreciate if you can explain why -the 787 is superior specifically because it’s narrower-.
Because it’s too narrow to squeeze in 10 rows abreast, as opposed to the B777, A330, and A350.
I see now I was mistaken. I remembered that the 788s seat width in economy was 18″, it’s only 17.1 when configured 9 abreast, which is the same as the 777 configured 10 abreast. The A330s and A350 are 18″ which is similar to the Delta 767s, but less than than the United 767 which is 18.5″.
Those are my favorite ride across the Atlantic in economy.
FYI no airlines fly to Israel with 777 accept ELAL to bangkok from to TLV
Has nothing to do with Boeing or airbus it’s how they want there seats
Airbus in general has wider fuesalge and therefore their seats are wider weather it’s the A320 A330 A350
Wow love this! Wish all airlines did this, something that always bothers me on planes ..
It’s very difficult for me to fly with ElAl and airlines in general since there is no efficient way to wash negel vasser without walking 4 amos. Last time I flew I needed to keep myself from falling asleep the whole flight since my seat was more than 4 amos form the bathroom. Accidentally I fell asleep and when I woke up I realized what had happened I was going to ask the flight attendant for a cup of water but realized I’m not allowed to talk since I didn’t wash yet. I needed to spent 5 min typing up a message on my flip phone.
This is only the first issue! While spending 5 minutes on a flip phone typing a message, we travel way more than 4 amos…
I find the bigger issue of how to find a mikva on the airplane. Last time I flew I tried to build one on the plane, but the bigoted flight attendant stopped me from creating a water duct through the roof of the plane. What an anti-Semite!
You could’ve Toiveled in the Toilet.
It’s probably Tisha Kevin LOL
You just cheered me up for a week
To the best of my knowledge, it’s more problematic to touch your phone before Negel Vasser, than to talk.
If you would know the halachos better you could’ve made a funnier joke!
Some Poskim consider sleeping while seated as שינת ארעי which does not require washing right away.
I never heard of not talking before negel vaaser, where did you take that from?
best comment ever!!
They just get better and better every day
Hopefully their pricing comes down
Awesome! Now charedi folks can watch their R-rated movies without nosy friends or spouses judging 😉
All people, chareidi or not, should be embarrassed to watch r rated movies. Especially in public.
No need to be embarrassed if people around you can’t see it.
There is someone watching even if people cant see.
Yeah, but, unlike nosy seatmates, He’s cool with me binging my favorite flicks at 35,000 ft.
Huh! Why chareidi?
lol I was thinking the same thing this is totally a double edged sword.
I totally think it is worth it and a great idea but there are going to be many yeshiva guys that were embarrassed to watch movies or movies with mature content that are going to now. Because now everyone will just assume they are checking the davening times for 2 hours straight with headphones on
That is great news! I would also hope if it’s possible, that when booking El Al should try to assign seats that men should sit next to men and women near women unless it’s family.
Also a section for singles, could mamash solve the shidduch crises!
Maybe one side for woman and one side for men and a mechitza on the middle
Or a plane for men and a plane for women
Or they can create 2 floors, men on top floor, women on the bottom.
So what you are saying is, ElAl should buy up all the A380’s and use them for NYC-TLV service… I like it. Can someone start the online petition?
bahahahaha this actually cracked me up
Or an aircraft with a special section reserved for the Haredi draft dodgers.
אנחנו לא רוצים להיות חילונים כמוכם שאין לכם שום
ערכים למה להתגייס אולי אתם תתגייסו ללמוד תורה ולא להכעיס הקב”ה רח”ל
Feels like Yahoo here that my comment got rejected twice
Comments are only approved manually. And we don’t monitor them 24/7, no matter what stories you make up in your head about our censorship policy.
Yup. Despite Bolshevism still alive and kicking, the Pravda editorial board is understaffed.
or for idf soldiers who have arrest warrants for genocide
Wow!! El al is my favorite airline in the past 3 years, is a completely new airline, i remember 4 years ago I would be willing to pay more and not fly with them, and today i would pay even 25% more just for the comfort to fly with them
I hope to see Elal treat people like humans,I recently flew them with 2 small children and I was delayed 7 hours due to “operational issues”. I flew 7:00 Am instead of 12:30 Am. I was forced to travel by day instead of night with almost no advance warning I get that they are on a high rite now and they are the only ones flying but that still dosent mean that is except-able to give zero compensation for such a great inconvenience. Tried reaching out all I got was typical elal attitude. This is not except el to treat a customer like this. Will never fly them again if I don’t have to. They are extremely greedy!
It will be great to finally have the us airlines flying again.
US airlines treat you the same.
just try with a claiming agent to claim compensation
Kenny is great at this! Heard a story that when rebbi lost his tefilin they got ahold of kenny who got it found in half-hour!
Will the screens have BT as well to connect your own AirPods instead of their plugin headphones?
This is amazing! With all due respect, I would however like to point out that American Airlines had some type of privacy screens on their seatback IFE on A321T a decade ago or so…So this is not some sort of El Al innovation…
Link?
To be honest, I actually did two Google searches regarding this so I can back myself up, but even after going thru about 10 pages in each search, I didn’t find anything specifying this. I did however, come across some pictures in Google Images that may confirm this but one can argue that it’s the result of poor lighting in the image creating an illusion of some sort of privacy screens.
I used to regularly fly AA (over a ~7 year period) between JFK and LAX on their A321T aircraft and I’m 99% sure my memory is serving me correctly. I actually confirmed this with my brother- who used to occasionally fly with me on these flights- before posting this in the comments…
Have to imagine this would be documented somewhere online if this were the case? Did you notice this in all classes of service?
Either way, that plane configuration is sadly going the way of the dodo.
Yup. No more AA narrowbodies with seatback IFE…
Once we are on this topic, I would like to get your expert opinion on the following. Do you think that AA will ultimately hurt themselves with this ‘campaign’ of stripping seatback IFE from their domestic fleet so as to cram more seats onboard? In contrast, Delta and United seem to be in some sort of a competition massively upgrading their seatback IFE. I believe that they have both committed to outfitting their entire fleets (with the exception of regional jets) with seatback IFE in the next few years.
Also, both Delta and United are adopting fleet-wide free WiFi- United recently announcing that it will be adopting Starlink….
Absolutely.
AA has had brAAin dead management since the USAir takeover. Same reason they scared off all their corporate clients and angered TAs with boneheaded moves that backfired spectacularly.
Or as Gordon Bethune put it at Continental, “You can make a pizza so cheap, nobody will eat it.”
They are going to trail DL and UA for premium passengers for years to come. They need a new management team badly.
I wonder if they’ll even return to TLV. Amazing to see everyone make a mint on that route except AA. Just clueless!
Thank you for the insight. I like your way of putting it- “brAAin dead management”. 🙂
I myself as a mostly economy traveler prefer DL and UA over AA any day of the week- largely due to their general investment into an improved passenger experience or vice versa. Then, once you throw Jetblue (as far as the domestic market is concerned) into the mix- I can’t figure out how they are trying to position themselves…but I’m kind of getting bad vibes from them too…
JetBlue is focusing on leisure routes now, but I don’t think they are long for this world. They lost their way long ago.
I’m wondering if they had second thoughts. I flew this today. They did one a year ago and stopped.
AA slowed down the retirement due to Boeing delays. But they are still committed to killing off first class and narrowbody IFE.
Yeh, I don’t know if officially privacy screens or not, but I’ve been on a few planes where it was effectively impossible to see ur neighbors screen
I certainly flew with Qantas privacy screens on their a380 around 10 years ago.
Hope they improve their website and customer service (response time) too
This is really cool!
I cant speak for anyone else but I personaly find my kids watching the screens the row in front of us through the space between the seats more than the neighboring seats. Will this stop that as well?
There’s a gemach in the Mir (Jlem) offering black sheets of opaque plastic which stick to the screen with static electricity. Works as a privacy filter for your OWN screen.
What about offering wine in economy or better food in general before all these innovation .
El Al ‘s food from New York is a disgrace . Thanks god the the monopoly is over
El Al owns the caterer they use out of JFK, EWR so they will not change the food. If you want good airline food you must fly United.
As soon as ElAl makes their prices competitive, not necessarily less than their competitors, I’m back on them.
I’m sure I’m not the only person who clicked on to this article, hoping to see a video or at least a picture of it….
Come on Dan,
you have standards!:)
The Privacy screens is great news for Shmirat Einayim!! I had many times while flying that I had my neighbors watching stuff that a Yid should not see.
I would like them to offer also entertainment in Yiddish.
They actually have entertainment in Yiddish though not a lot
They should offer shiurim from “Torah Anytime”, not only from YU.
Love it! And thanks to all the commenters above, made my day 😀
How about just not watching anything on the plane? Just bring a walkman with a good Torah Tape (from the Brooklyn tape library) or nature sounds to help you sleep? Tehillim works, too. I miss TWA.
What a useless upgrade. The world doesn’t revolve around your children
I would like to highlight an issue regarding the availability of Artscroll’s loaded iPads, which are supposed to be offered by flight attendants. Unfortunately, when I requested one, my request was denied.
When is ElAl going to stop flying for 5 minutes so the minyan can daven shmoneh esray without having to worry about unexpected bumps and falling down like they do on Monsey Tours/Monsey trails vasikin bus?
Why cant elal start serve the fleishig meal 6 hours after the milchig meal? or start serving the milchig meal earlier? its hard enough trying to figure out when 6 hours is even without changing time zones.
Serving mezonot rolls/pita with the regular kosher meals.
Was just on an El Al flight that seemed to have the privacy screens installed. It only helps darken and blur the screens on the side of you. Any screen in front of you, you can still see perfectly (which I always find is what people are seeing – between the spaces of the seats)
That’s the main problem, I was once on a plane and there was ahigh school girl in front of me watching things that no one should be watching even non Jews so this is great!
i dont think peaple should start going crazy on what other peaple do be happy w privacy screens so if you care not to see you wont but what he wathches shoulnt effect you and the person whos wathching a bad movie will get hold of it on the plane or somewhere else