Time they got decent machines. Put all this nonsense aside, get decent machines, and lead the pack.
Only one thing stops 1-Time from being top of the domestics in SA, and that is the equipment they fly.
There is a second thing..................money or more precisely the cost of finance.
The choice of MD-80s is for no other reason than they can be bought/leased cheaply. If 1time were to replace these aircraft with say B737 - 700 or 800 then the cost of financing them would soar through the roof. 1time is a low cost carrier with, I suspect, very thin margins and no room for massive increases in costs.
That said, I thought there was a rumour last year that they were going to get the ex-Saudi MD-90 aircraft from Airbus who took them when Saudi changed to Airbus. These aircraft were basically the prototypes for the MD-95/B717 aircraft.