My experience with Elal:
Flew together with my brother's family, we each had a baby.
Reserved bulkhead seats and my brother's baby got a bassinet since his baby was less than 9 months old (the official cuttoff age for bassinets). I asked at the check-in counter if there was a empty seat next to either me or my wife to bring the carseat on the plane, and they blocked me a seat for that. Everything went perfectly well.
On the way back, at the check-in couter, I formulated the same request, and the agent adamantly responded that there's no way she would give me an empty seat next to me, that there were only 7 empty seats in the whole flight and she would have to readjust many people in order to fulfill my request.
We got to the gate, passed the spot where you leave the strollers and carseats, and I decided that I am taking the carseat into the plane anyways... (wasn't gonna hold a baby for the whole flight).
After standing in line to get into the aircraft, barely about a minute before our turn to board came, I nervously started entretaining the thought of having to hold the baby AND the carseat, if things didn't work out the way I expected them to, so I quickly ran to the stroller drop-off spot and checked in the carseat...
We got to our seats, and once the doors closed we realized that the empty spot next to me remained empty! unclaimed!
By now there was no way to get our carseat back, as the aircraft was already moving, and the baby was crying uncontrolably.
One of the crew members approached us and, looking at his paper said: "it's a shame that the baby is over nine months, otherwise we would have provided you with a bassinet" (meanwhile my brother's baby who was under that cuttoff age but WAY heavier than my baby got a bassinet).
To make the long story short, after about 2 hours of crying, two crewmembers came over and put up a bassinet, they said that this is an exception, and they are doing it on condition that we "hold the baby during turbulence". BH!!