After today's warning article about El Al (Link below) I am more determined to post my question (please direct me to post if it exists).
I need to start travelling from TLV to NYC (preferably EWR) fairly frequently (4-8 yearly). I am looking for economy direct flights. I don't see a good choice besides for El Al (even with all it's issues).
El Al has great schedules and lots of flights (especially to Newark).
United is usually more expensive and out of TLV flies mid-day (terrible) or 11:30pm which is not as good IMO as the 12/1am options of El Al. They also have worse return times (for example flying out of NY on Thursday afternoon/evening to arrive for Shabbos isn't possible with United).
Delta seems to have one flight per day and it's to JFK (much less convenient) and the Motzei Shabbos flight is often astronomically expensive and, like United, you can't fly from NY on Thursday for Shabbos. I also had a horrendous encounter with my last Delta flight to Israel with my family (I did get 5 $200 GCs after writing a long complaint letter but I can at least conclude that bad service can be had with Delta too).
So what real choice do I have? Purposely take a layover in Europe to fly a better airline?
p.s. Article link: (
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/el-al/el-al-settles-cancels-settlement-defamed-passengers-flight-002-tricked-flying-greece-shabbos/#comment-1430512)