The scenes of a crowded Ben Gurion airport shown on television caused us to leave home at 2:30 pm Saturday in order to be at BG at 3 pm, three and a half hours before take off. But as Ryanair flies from the old terminal 1, there weren't very many people there, and we had to wait maybe twenty minutes for the Ryanair check-in to open. Apart from being forced to buy N-95 masks, there were no queues at passport control or luggage checking either. As a result, we sat in the departures lounge for about two hours (I had stopped looking at the time).
The flight to Bari was without incident, although it wasn't exactly a pleasurable experience. Maybe I've forgotten what it's like to fly, but I'm sure that in previous flights I didn't have someone in the adjacent seat digging his elbow into my stomach, as happened a few times. As can be seen in the accompanying photo, we had to be masked at all times, except when eating. We didn't eat on the plane, partially because I (at least) wasn't hungry, but also because most of the items on the plane's menu had been eaten, presumably on the flight from Bari to Tel Aviv. Next week, the flight leaves at 3:30 local time, arrives at Tel Aviv, the engineers retwist the rubber band that powers the aircraft, passengers get on then the plane flies home to Bari. The food gets eaten on the first leg and little is left for the return flight. The touch-down was rather bumpy but that's what one gets when one flies low cost. I do admit though that almost all of my apprehensions did not happen.
Once we got off the plane and through passport control (with only two open booths, so we had to queue for a while), the rest happened very fast. Our single suitcase was on the carousel just as I arrived, so no waiting there. Our pre-booked driver was waiting for us and took us to our sumptuous hotel, where unfortunately we won't have much of a chance to enjoy its facilities as we are here only for two nights.
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