48 hours in airports

I once tried to get to Tel Aviv from Bangkok and it took me 48 hours, visits to 4 airports, and 10 missed flights.

Many years ago, I used to work for an airline. As you may or may not know, most airlines grant their employees with some sort of cheap flights, where they pay taxes only or partial fare. These tickets are standby tickets, meaning you only get on the flight if there is a free seat. Then, there is the priority system, where employees are ranked by the type of their ticket, the airline they work for, and their seniority with the airline (this varies between airlines).

Back to the story! I was trying to fly from BKK in Thailand (Bangkok international airport) to TLV in Israel (Ben Gurion international airport, outside Tel Aviv). My timing could not have been worse. It was the day after Simchat Torah, the last of the Jewish holidays in the month of the high holidays. That month starts with Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and ends 22 days later with Simchat Torah. This is the time when most Israelis travel abroad, since there are no schools and you only have a few working days to bridge over in between the holidays, and I tried to get to Tel Aviv on a standby ticket...

So I started in Bangkok, went straight to EL AL Israeli Airlines to try my luck on a direct flight, they had one flight a day to TLV. I was told that the flight is fully booked and there are 107 (!!!) standby passengers on the standby list, no matter what my priority was, there was no getting on that flight.

I then turned to Lufthansa, hoping to fly to Frankfurt, where I knew there were 2 daily EL AL flight plus 2 daily Lufthansa flights to TLV, way better chances (so I thought). I managed to get on the night flight from BKK to FRA (Frankfurt) and as soon as I landed I ran to the Lufthansa gate of the flight to TLV. There, I was told that the flight was overbooked and they are even moving passengers to the evening flight, which was also full (there goes another option out the window).

I turned to the EL AL counters, it was now around 10 am. EL AL staff informed me that the flight was also full and had "only" 20 standby passengers on the list (apparently, EL AL employees also take these holidays as an opportunity to travel). I realized I will not get on the evening flight as well and decided to hop over to the closest airport with as many daily flights possible to Tel Aviv - CDG, Paris.

With 12 daily flights operated by 3 Israeli airlines, CDG was my best bet. I got there on a Lufthansa flight around 3 pm and went directly to the check-in counters. The situation was not very different, but I had many more options to go for.

Eventually, I was able to get on a flight to TLV at 4 am the next day, sitting on a jump seat (the flight attendants' folding seats) and arrived at Tel Aviv airport at 11 am, two days after leaving Thailand, not sleeping (other than on some of the flights) and not taking a shower.