You're right, any airline can have issues with new planes and you are also right that older planes have more m/x issues and poorer dispatch reliability. However, when taking into account the totality of the circumstances, EL AL with a fleet of less than 40 a/c seems to have m/x issues on a regular basis with both their old and new planes. Consequently, at minimum there is an appearance, on the surface, that EL AL may have poor maintenance.