El Al offers to check in bags “at home”

The trial “check-in at home” service is available for passengers flying from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and on flights between Ashdod and Netanya. For around £28, an El Al member of staff will visit you at your hotel (or any address you request) between six and 24 hours before your flight and carry out a passport and ticket check, security check and luggage weigh-in. Passengers will then be given a boarding pass and their checked bags will be delivered to the airport. For business and first class passengers the service should reduce check-in time from around two and a half hours to 55 minutes before planned departure times, while the greatest advantage would be for economy passengers whose check-in time would fall from three hours to just under one hour. Lufthansa carried out a similar trial at its Frankfurt hub last year, as reported on businesstraveller.com (September 26, 2007). The trial ran until December 31 but the airline is not implementing the service. A spokeswoman for Lufthansa said: “The customer response was very good but at the moment we are not continuing the service.” For more information visit elal.co.il, lufthansa.com. Report by Felicity Cousins