South African Airways (SAA)

It’s not a review of a flight but about customer care before the flight. SAA canceled my flight, bought two weeks before. Considering it was a multi-track flight (6 flights) i booked all the seats, but after the cancellation of two of these, they erased all the booking seats. I asked to proceed to re-book the seats for free, because i have already paid for them. I contacted the customer care on twitter and one operator was good and wrote me he/she rebooked all the 4 SAA flights. After 3 days the seats seems not yet booked and I’m trying again to have an answer from them on twitter, without success. I’m really disappointed because my expectation, considering they canceled my flight, is to have more customer attention about a simply request like the one of booking a seat.

I booked a business class flight from Columbus, Ohio to Durban, SA on SAA because it appeared on the reservation to be a two-stop itinerary (Washington-Johannesburg-Durban) rather than 3 stops on my preferred airline. After booking, I find that it is actually a 3 stop route, with a refueling stop in Dakar. This was not apparent in the booking process and only apparent upon checkin. To add to this, we were not allowed to get off the plane during the refueling stop and then my request for a cup of coffee was refused. The plane itself was very old, the seats uncomfortable, and shockingly for a 16 hour journey, NOT lie-flat. The power outlet did not work. I will definitely avoid SAA if possible in the future. No snacks to mention in the galley during the flight. I travelled 350,000 miles in the air last year with multiple transatlantic and transpacific flights and this was the worst.

I have been traveling with my wife on SAA flight SA203 from Johannsburg to New York on 21 June 2018. During entire flight entertainment system was out of order which made this 15 hours journey extremally unpleasant. In addition air temperature in the cabin was very high and crew were unable to adjust it to the comfortable level. It was so hot that some of the passengers have fainted. Looks like this aircraft if very old and never was refurbished. One can often experience bad service, unpleasant situation, delay or break down during air travels. It happened to me on quite a few occasions but every time carrier involved responded to complain and at least apologised, promising improvements. Unfortunately this is not how SAA works. My complain remains unanswered for over 2 months!

We were scheduled to fly from Tampa, USA to cape Town on March 21st. I was emailed on the afternoon of the 20th advising me of the cancellation of both our flights (Tampa-New York – Johannesburg) due to the impending storm in New York. Thankfully I noticed this email so I immediately called SAA and after 64 minutes on hold was told by an agent that the first available flight was on March 23rd. We were attending a reunion from the 23rd to 26th in Stellenbosch with accommodation prepaid, and non-refundable. This Reunion was the reason behind the travel to South Africa. I realized that if we took this flight it would get us to our destination a day late, but we had no other choice than to accept this alternative. The SAA agent then went on to tell me that because I had booked through a third party (Orbitz) and not directly with SAA I would have to contact Orbitz to make these changes. I immediately called Orbitz and waited while Sid, the Orbitz agent, was on hold with SAA customer service line for 90 minutes before actually speaking to an agent at SAA. Due to all these delays with the SAA customer phone service, or lack thereof, the original flight they had offered was full. The first available flight would be the 25th getting us to Cape Town just as the reunion was ending. Sid was then told that if we cancelled the ticket we would be given a non-transferable voucher for travel on the identical route valid for 12 months from the booking date (Jan 10th). My wife and I both work and would have to take unpaid leave to meet this requirement. As soon as we returned from South Africa on April 5th I tried calling SAA to claim our ticket refunds and/or vouchers. They were less than obliging on the phone and gave me an email address to have my ticket cancellation resolved. Or so I thought! I have attached several of my emails showing you their lack of response except for the first automatic response. To this day, nobody has bothered to reach either my wife or myself. Suffice to say we have still not had any communication and or resolve from SAA!

Great flight and airline. Food was good, seat comfortable and service excellent. Better than most airlines Iv’e flown.