It's great that El AL have been able to successfully tap into a community that wants easy, efficient flights to Israel. Not only does Luton offer convenient connectivity, it also gives El Al the ability to scale their operation up or down depending on demand, something they could never do just from Heathrow.
Don't forget you also have easyJet flying twice daily to TLV offering a further 360 seats in each direction!
During Jewish holiday periods, as well as the extra capacity being offered by El Al, we also see a number of other carriers popping up, like Jet2, Sun D'Or and Israir. Are these charter flights being operated by a local Jewish travel agency or are they flying on behalf of El Al to fill seating capacity demand their own fleet can't meet?
The capacity in general being offered is quite phenominal, when you consider a few years back there was hardly any flights to Israel and just the occasional charters to Eilat and Ovda.