We recently flew this route on a day time flight that left Israel around 10:30 a.m. and had a bizarre experience.
What happened was basically:
The boarding started about 25 minutes late. Eventually the plane left the gate about 11:40 instead of 10:30 and was scheduled to land at about 1:50 for our 2:15 flight to Chicago. The stewardess assured us that the plane would wait for us and was rescheduled to 2:55. We felt pretty comfortable that everything would work out. Until we saw that the plane wasn't going to a gate but parked in a remote area of the airport. Suddenly there was the issue of for us elderly people going down the stairs to the tarmac with carry-ons which was not possible. It was pretty difficult until an agent came to help. We boarded a bus and had a 10 minute drive to where it dropped us off (passing many empty gates along the way). It was already 2:15. When we went inside several agents were there to segregate all the Chicago passengers. They rushed us to start moving and there wasn't even a chance to get the requested wheelchair. we had ordered in advance. They said to just follow them so we went up an escalator and started walking. They wouldn't wait to get a wheelchair so we started walking and walking and walking until one of really couldn't walk any more. We were the last stragglers behind a lady with a cane and some very elderly people. Finally a wheelchair came so that we could continue and yet we kept walking and walking and walking. We went up one floor and started walking and walking until they picked up the stragglers on one of those motorized buggy carts. And we were riding and riding until we came to a gate that had additional security where everyone's carry-ons and persons were searched and inspected. When we thought we were about to board the plane it turns out that the gate was a three-flight staircase down to the tarmac where we had to carry the carry-ons. We boarded the bus and realized we were going to have to go another large flight of stairs to the plane. Wen were not able to do this while trying to carry the carry-ons up the stairs which was very difficult until a nice fellow passenger took one of them up the rest of the way. We got on to the plane a little after 3:00. It was at least a mile if you walked the entire distance plus the difficult plane stairs.
Question is whether this is a normal procedure for a flight arriving from Israel and then in transit to the US. We have a flight in 6 weeks with the same itinerary and would switch to a different carrier if this is standard.
Additionally, in case it helps someone, we were in business class and were served the most disgusting food I've ever seen on any flight regardless of class. As we left early morning after Simchas Torah we weren't able to get anything to bring with us.
