El Al Kosher Food: Which Hashgacha You're Actually Getting

El Al is the one major airline where kosher isn't a special request. Every meal, every snack, every drink on every El Al flight is kosher — economy through business, Tel Aviv to Bangkok. No KSML code to enter at booking, no anxious walk to the galley to confirm your meal actually loaded. That alone puts El Al in a category of one, which is why it sits where it does in our ranking of airline kosher meals.

But "kosher" is not one thing, and the interesting question on El Al was never whether the food is kosher. It's which kosher. The hashgacha — the rabbinic certification standing behind the food — changes depending on the airport you depart from, and there's a free, stricter mehadrin option most passengers never hear about. This guide covers who certifies what, how to order the mehadrin meal, what changed with El Al's massive new catering facility in 2026, and the ordering deadlines that quietly trip people up.

El Al doesn't cook everything in one kitchen. Catering loads at each departure station, and the supervision follows the kitchen:

• Departing Tel Aviv: the standard meal is under the Rabbanut, supervised through the airport rabbi. One practical quirk here — there's no certification label on the meal itself. You're relying on the airline's system-wide supervision, not a seal you can read on the tray.
• Departing JFK, Newark, or Boston: meals come from Borenstein Caterers, an El Al subsidiary since 1970, under OU certification.
• Departing Los Angeles or Miami: local kosher agencies certify the catering at those stations.

Meat on US departures is glatt. For most travelers, any of these standards is comfortably fine, and it certainly beats hoping a random caterer in Frankfurt remembered your special meal. But if your family holds by a specific hashgacha, or you want a certificate physically on the package, the standard tray out of Tel Aviv won't give you one. That's exactly the problem the mehadrin meal solves.

Mehadrin means food prepared to a stricter standard than baseline kosher — the standard many chassidish and yeshivish families keep at home. On El Al it's an actual special meal code, SKML, and it costs nothing. You add it yourself under Manage My Booking on elal.com, the same place you'd pick a seat.

What you get depends, again, on where you board:

• Out of Tel Aviv: the mehadrin meal carries a Badatz Eida HaChareidit certificate — one of the most widely accepted hashgachos in Israel — printed right on the packaging.
• Out of the US: Borenstein supplies its OU-certified "Regal" mehadrin line: double-sealed trays with glatt meat, Cholov Yisroel dairy (milk supervised from the milking onward), and Pas Yisroel baked goods (a Jew involved in the baking).

Two details no generic booking site will tell you. First, if you keep yoshon (flour only from the previous year's crop), the status of Borenstein's meals varies by product — call them directly at 718-656-3600 before you fly. Second, SKML is a special service request like any other, which means it can silently vanish when your ticket is changed or rebooked. More on that below, and in our guide to making sure your kosher meal actually shows up.

Premium cabins bring one nuance worth understanding calmly. El Al serves business-class meals on reusable china, and as Rabbi Moshe Elefant of the OU has pointed out, that china travels the world with the aircraft and gets washed and reused alongside food from many different commissaries along the way. This is not a scandal — it's how every airline's premium service works — but it is a variable that a sealed, disposable economy tray simply doesn't have.

The mehadrin meal sidesteps the question entirely: it arrives double-sealed with disposable service, even in business class. Plenty of observant travelers eat the standard premium service happily; plenty of others order SKML up front precisely for this reason. Know the detail exists, ask your rav if you're unsure where you stand, and order accordingly. Nobody on the crew will blink — on El Al, a mehadrin request is about as exotic as asking for seltzer.

Yes. Every meal, snack, and drink on every El Al flight is kosher, in all cabins — no special meal order required. The certification varies by departure airport: Rabbanut supervision out of Tel Aviv, OU-certified Borenstein Caterers out of JFK, Newark, and Boston, and local kosher agencies out of Los Angeles and Miami. Passengers who want a stricter standard can order the free mehadrin (SKML) meal instead of the standard service.

It's a free special meal, code SKML, prepared to a stricter standard than El Al's regular kosher food. Out of Tel Aviv it carries a Badatz Eida HaChareidit certificate on the packaging; out of the US it's Borenstein's OU-certified Regal mehadrin line — double-sealed, with glatt meat, Cholov Yisroel dairy, and Pas Yisroel baked goods. It arrives sealed with disposable service in every cabin, including business class.

Add the SKML meal through Manage My Booking on elal.com, or by phone — there's no charge. Order at booking if you can. Reported cutoffs run from 12 hours before Tel Aviv weekday departures to 48 hours before Saturday-night flights, so confirm the exact deadline on elal.com. If your ticket changes for any reason, re-add the request, then reconfirm by phone a day or two before departure.

Meat on El Al flights departing the US is glatt — the stricter standard requiring the animal's lungs to be smooth and free of adhesions. The standard meal out of Tel Aviv is under Rabbanut supervision, with no glatt labeling on the tray itself. If glatt specifically matters to you, order the mehadrin (SKML) meal, which is glatt at every station, and confirm current details with El Al before you fly.