Daily Israair Nir Labov and Hanna Benoz Elias (Photo: Nir Labov)
An incident in a flying Israeli family, where father (and father) work as senior flight attendants, but each in a different company (and maybe also a competitor), and together raise two small children who also seem to have been infected with the aviation bug.
And if that's not enough, the mother of one of the flight attendants also works as a flight attendant.
Meet the flight attendants
Nir Lavov
(42) originally from Haifa, and
Chai Benouz
(40) from Ashdod, pressmen in Bishrair and Bel Al (respectively), and
Hana Benouz Elias
(61) also a flight attendant in Bishrair, who lead a glamorous life on the Tel Aviv-Hamal line but always Returning home, to Israel.
What is it like to work in the same position but in competing companies?
What is it like working with your mother-in-law?
We caught up with them to talk about family and aviation.
Leading a glamorous life on the Tel Aviv-Haomal line.
Chai (right) and Nir as pressers (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
"I looked at him and at that moment I said 'he's mine'"
Hai has been working for 15 years at El Al, but began his career at Bishrair flight attendants in 2006, where he met Nir, who happened to also be the flight attendant from the famous "Chocolate Flight" in 2015.
After two years in which they worked together, Chai moved to El Al while Nir stayed in Ishrair.
Why did you move, Hai?
Nir: "Because he couldn't stand me anymore."
Chai: "I always wanted to be at El Al, there were simply no courses opened when I wanted to be accepted and I had to wait."
In short, you left all the quicks to Nir, and went on flights with layovers.
Nir: "Why? He also had stays in Bangkok and New York, and besides, he takes me to Batumi on Passover."
Did you know each other when you worked together on the flight?
"I had already been in Ishrair for two years and Chai came to the new course, and I was a sort of steward who was asked questions about the job and what it was like to be a steward," Nir recalled.
"I looked at him and at that moment I said, 'I need him, he's mine,' and at that time I was in the closet."
Chai intervenes and adds, "But when he came to speak on the panel about the work, I saw him, and when I left I talked to a friend and inquired about him: 'Who is this, what is this,' so he told me, 'Forget it - he's not gay,' and I forgot about it."
At an Israir company party, Nir saw Chai again and through a mutual friend, who knew that Nir was gay, he tried to find out if Chai was interested in him.
"I checked what was the matter with this new steward, and what would happen if, say, he knew that I was indeed gay," says Nir.
The mutual friend flew the next day with Chai to New York, talked to him and told him about Nir, but on the condition that he be discreet.
When Chai returned to Israel, they arranged to meet.
"I remember we met at my place in the apartment I rented with a friend, and we didn't stop talking all night," says Nir.
They did not know that that friend, Tali, would later become the mother of their two children.
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"I talked to a friend and inquired about him."
Nir and Chai as young stewards in Ishrair (photo: courtesy of the photographers)
"It's easier to raise children this way than in the 'normative' way of one house."
With Yonatan (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed)
Three in one apartment
Chai and Nir began to maintain the new relationship, when Chai lived with a flight attendant for rent and later the relationship between the partners was on the rocks and Chai was looking for an apartment with other partners.
"I told him, 'Come, I'll help you look for an apartment,' and we went from apartment to apartment in Tel Aviv, and every time I told him, 'Come sleep with me and we'll look for an apartment without pressure,'" says Nir.
Have you ever thought of moving in together?
Nir: "Why, I just came out of the closet in front of the family and everything was fresh."
Chai agreed to move Nir and Tali into the apartment, and since then they have lived "three in one apartment."
After two months they realized they needed their own corner and moved in together on Pinsker Street in Tel Aviv.
Later, they bought an apartment in the Florentine neighborhood, where their eldest son, Yonatan, was also born in 2014. "Hai was very stressed about a child and I flowed with him," says Nir, "and we started the whole parenting process and there was a very quick absorption, it should be noted."
Nir and Chavi even helped Tali move right next to them and found her an apartment to rent in the building where they lived.
"She lived on the third floor at the time and we are on the second floor," they say.
"The boy was an 'elevator boy'" they say jokingly.
Four years later, Tali became pregnant again, this time with Nir's sperm, and Daphne was born.
How do you manage the flights and the children when you are both flight attendants?
"Nir Havi: "Shared parenting helps a lot, because it means a day here, a day there, and it's easier to raise children this way than in the 'normative' way of one home, when all the burden falls on one home.
It also makes it easier and our children help each other, and live in two houses that respect each other."
For the past six years, the family has lived in Holon, with Tali living across the road from their house.
"Hai was very stressed about a child and I flowed with him."
With Yonatan and Daphne (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
Chai: "I mostly have a conscience, say when I have to go out to stay."
The family abroad (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
Everyone asks "Why doesn't Nir move to El Al?"
What experiences, apart from challenges, do you have as two flight attendants who are constantly in the air?
Chai: "I mostly have a conscience, say when I have to go out to stay and I have to lose mornings with them when the children go to school, or nights with them. And with Nir, when I have a free day and I know that Nir is at home or coming back from a flight and I'm not there - so it's very difficult for me With that and that's why I make very short stays, if at all, and I give up flying to New York or other places and take quickies to be at home, or I just take them with me."
What reactions do you get from people, about parenting and the fact that everyone works in a different company?
Chai: "The reactions are mostly positive, and the first question I get every time about Nir is, 'Why doesn't he move to El Al? By the way, they ask the same thing about my mother.'
Well Nir, so here's the question again - why don't you switch to El Al?
Nir: "First of all, my promotion at Isherrayer was extremely fast because I was lucky and all my development and growth at Isherrayer I moved from a place of a presser and a guide, and in order to suddenly move to God for that he says 'downgrade' (Shnmuch - Z.R.), meaning to be such a young steward , and beyond that I say: every company has its own DNA - I fit Israir's DNA and I live with El Al's, and there is no need to mix."
Hannah, and why don't you go to God to be with your son?
"It's because of being there, you get to be away from home for a lot of days and that way it also fits well with the business for me, and you don't have to be abroad too much."
By the way, Hana, did you get to work with Nir once?
"It turned out that we got the same flight "Z, and it turned out that he or I switched or were jumped on the flight, so yes."
And what is it like working with your in-laws?
"It's excellent, everything is very professional, there are no discounts and everything is ticking as it should,
On the children: "I will push them to become flight attendants because I really want them to experience it" (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
"I give up flying to other places or I take them with me."
The family in the USA (photo: courtesy of those photographed)
The flight attendant's mother has a son named - Nir
But how can one not mix, when another side, as mentioned, entered the story of the flying family four years ago.
Hana, Chai's mother, left her career as a preschool teacher and after a decade of living in New York, returned to her hometown, Ashdod, studied real estate management and marketing and opened an apartment brokerage office in New York. "I've been doing this since 1998," she says, " And four years ago, when the children grew up and finished school, I decided to do what I love and it was a childhood dream.
I said, 'It's now or never.'"
Wasn't my life affected?
"No, because we always flew and were on the line (to New York - ZR), and I turned the hobby into a profession and I'm happy about the change I made." Tell me, what do you think about "the
couple The young man?
" "They are my life, they brought me two of the most valuable gifts in the world and I am happy for them and happy to have them."
As the flying family, are you sometimes abroad together?
"Mostly not because Bisherair usually doesn't have a stay, but they do occasionally and I join them. I want to go back after a day's work to go home, and that's enough for me."
Hana, who is currently in New York for the engagement of her middle son, Nir, tells of a very moving experience that happened to her, in which Yonatan and Chai had just returned from New York and were heading towards passport control, while she was on her way to a work flight, when little Yonatan spotted Grandma walking past him in the other direction .
"We met on the stairs in the opposite direction and it was exciting," she recalls, "he called me from downstairs, 'Grandma, come on' and all the passengers around didn't understand what happened."
"It was a childhood dream. I said 'it's now or never'" Hana Benouz Elias in an Israir uniform (photo: courtesy of the photographers)
Does not give her discounts at work.
Nir and Hana on a joint flight (photo: courtesy of the photographers)
The "next generation" is also infected with the bacteria
So Hana, a relatively "new" flight attendant, combines the flights with her brokerage business in New York, and it seems that neither Nir nor Havi intend to get rid of the aviation bug after 17 years in the profession.
Do you see your future as pressers until retirement?
Chai: "Yes, but I have been involved in several other things in recent years."
Nir: "The corona caused him to develop in a very creative way into the things he dreamed of."
Chai: "I really like fashion and I studied at Shankar and I was looking for how to combine it with work, and in recent years I have been working as a stylist and doing commercials and fashion productions and also a lecturer at makeup artist Yarin Shaf."
Would you like your children to be flight attendants?
Chai: "Of course, Daphne already wants to and said she wants to be like Dad's models (that I dress) and also wants to be a flight attendant."
Nir: "Yonathan less so, even though it's sewn on him. He loves flights and just waits to fly abroad all the time.
I'll even push them there because I really want them to experience it, even if for a short period of a few years, because it's really an amazing job."
The flying family.
From the right: Yonatan, Daphne, Chai, Hana, Nir's mother and Nir on vacation in Batumi (photo courtesy of the photographers)
Which destination would you most like to fly to, or what is your ultimate vacation?
Nir: "The fantasy now is Australia. I was there after the army, but Hai wasn't there yet, and for us it's the dream, but it can't come true now because the children are small and we can't really leave for a long time, and Australia is a long vacation."
Chai: "We will take a few more years for the children to be more independent, or we will wait for Corona - during Corona we took the children for a month and a half to New York and other places in the USA, and that was one of the trips."
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