It's hard to say if they really have a bigger problem than other airlines or not. Keep in mind they have a large fleet (619 aircraft according to their website) and of those, 247 are MD80's. The MD80 is an aging aircraft (to say the least) and will be more prone to a mechanical problem.
Are they cutting corners? Who knows. But the statistics are kind of stacked against them. Other than the MD80 the main stay of their fleet is 757's and 737-800's. The 737's are still new enough to be reliable, but the 757's are getting up there in their years. It's a much better plane than the MD80, but still aging.
Cortney - OK, I understand they said it was fixed but instead brought a plane from the hangar. Does that mean that the gate staff outright lied? No. Even if they did lie, is it really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things? You as an airline employee should know that there are cases where the simplest explanation take the least time and is easier when in the end it doesn't truly matter. It's very likely that the problem was worse than they thought, so instead of delaying you more they pulled a plane from the hangar that was in the hangar with something much simpler that could be MEL'd.
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