Hooray, hooray - Easyjet is launching flights to Tel Aviv from November 2.
The lead-in prices are remarkably cheap: just over £100 return plus £8 each way if you check a bag in. Presumably food is extra but it's very tempting.
The problem, unfortunately, is that it doesn't stay that way. When Thomson launched its all too short-lived series of London/Tel Aviv flights a couple of years ago, the first fares were relatively low, too; I flew in January 2008 for about £150 return and thought myself very lucky.
This Pesach, however, I ended up getting one of the last Thomson flights to Israel (I hadn't planned in advance to be in Tel Aviv), and paid a stinging £586. You could easily pay that on a scheduled flight - and you wouldn't pay extra for food and you'd get a decent seat pitch and a more generous baggage allowance.
El Al, which has just moved from Stansted to Luton, was just starting to feel the benefit of flying from a north-west-London-friendly airport. Anecdotally I hear more people enjoy flying from Luton because it's local (-ish), accessible, intimate, and the parking is cheap.
Now that Easyjet is going to offer Tel Aviv flights from Luton, too, I predict the airport is going to become a zoo. But it will be a bearable (sorry) zoo if - and only if - Easyjet keeps its prices low. Please, Stelios - you know it makes sense.