I don't think you're a "newbie", nor am I knocking your ability to grease the wheels at LY, clearly you're a valuable customer to them. I also think that LY can be excellent (the best in the world sometimes) when it comes to inflight service, if you have the right crew.

I think a lot of the negativity comes naturally, from the country where everyone thinks they should be the PM or the RAMATKAL.

There are a few big problems with El Al, some are due to management and a corporate structure that was used to being a state-owned entity. Some due to the incompetence of the IAA. Service-wise, there are a lot of problems dealing with us jews. a friend of mine who was a FA said that Israelis don't know how to receive service. And that's not even talking about the shtuyiot of the ultra-orthodox.

But that doesn't excuse the selection of 2 generation old premium seating. Or the shortsighted selection of 777s and more old 747s over 787 orders.

El Al's competitors mint money on TLV. Does LY "lose" money because they don't fly on שבת, probably, but the loss in two areas: lost usage of the planes (~10% of the operational cost of flying, which is when flying, planes sitting on the ground don't cost much money since lease terms and value depend on cycles and operating hours), and the fixed cost of corporate staff. Pilots, FAs and other staff are paid for the work performed so that cost scales with the flying time.