[David Diaz]

In October I arranged a trip with El Al from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles for myself, my wife and my daughter (seven years old). I was to fly to LA at the beginning of November. My wife was to fly out on Thanksgiving with my daughter. My wife was then to return to Tel Aviv a week later, and I was to return to Tel Aviv at the end of December with my daughter.

I had no complaints about my flight to LA in November, aside from the '90s vintage entertainment system with several channels of movies on loops. The plane was comfortable enough and clean, with relatively good food and no trouble with the service.

Then, due to an internal dispute, El Al arbitrarily canceled the flight my wife and daughter were to take to Los Angeles, providing no solution whatsoever and completely destroying our plan. We were notified of the cancellation a few hours before the flight, when they were already packed and ready to leave, leaving little time to make other arrangements. We were on the phone for hours trying to reach El Al, but nobody answered. My wife and daughter were crushed and upset. To salvage the rest of the trip, I had to scramble to book alternate flights with United and had to spend several thousand dollars on alternate flights—way beyond the cost of the original flights. I had to rebook my own return flight with United instead of El Al because my daughter obviously can't fly alone. There was no other option but to completely cancel the trip and return home.

El Al was nowhere to be found throughout this traumatic experience.

It wasn't until several weeks later that we received a refund for my wife's and daughter's flights. El Al refused to offer any compensation of any kind for the trouble or distress caused, or the additional cost incurred. After a month and a half of wrangling with El Al's customer service, the only compensation offered was a partial credit for the return flight I could not use, which could only be used for a single ticket with El Al.

El Al's management and personnel are apparently highly irresponsible and incompetent, putting their own internal disputes above customer service. I highly doubt we will ever fly with El Al again.