South African Airways / FlySAA.com
Reviews and Complaints

I was on the flight back to the UK from JHB via South African Airways Flight: SA 236 ; Class :VY; Date 27 March @ 2020 ; Airline Ref is Y3HLZI on airbus A 340-200.

The fact that SAA advertises personal televisions screens in front of passenger's seatd over the PA when some were pointed to watch a shared screen is another issue that prompts passengers to ask questions, however this unprofessional attitude that the SAA crew members display infront on international passengers needs more attention!

These young hostesses have a beautiful uniform and all look well groomed and look really friendly and professional. There is nothing wrong with this picture depicting a professional and friendly, proudly South African company and gives me personal pride to be a part of this country!

When you hear the first, automated welcome greeting with the phrase " pls note it is an offence to interfere with the cabin crew" a warning light goes up - the phrase is probably shrugged off by most as it is normally an understood behaviour and probably just needed to be reiterated as passengers admittedly can be a nuisance, also.

This is not the case here, as the saying applies: " It takes two to tango"..

My experience on this flight was this:

I place on an isle seat and the aircon was blowing on me during the flight and another lady actually swopped seats with a gent because of this freeze. We both realized that the aircon is not going to be switched off and so I after bearing it to my limit, lit the hostess light.

I did not get attention from any hostess and the one selling duty free goods passed my seat and switched the light of. ok... I let this on slide, seeing that she was busy .

Next, I went up to the cabin crew "kitchen" and found our main service hostess eating her supper there ..I kindly asked for a blanket when she was done with her meal. She politely responded that it would not be a problem and that was the end of her duty on that request as I never received a blanket from her.

So, after some time, I lit the hostess light once again and waited..

A little while thereafter the "duty-free" hostess who was now doing stock count ( or something on a clip-board) walked moaning to my seat and switched the light off again and wanted to walk off without even looking at me.

Now, I waved her sight to me and asked politely if I could please get another blanket as the aircon was blowing cold on me .This hostess smilingly looked at me and told me she would look for me...well she must not have found a blanket as I did not get one from her or did not hear from her again the whole flight.

I now was disappointed and in this state just kept this to myself but observed these hostesses, further. Having this message in my mind.." It is an offence to interfere with the cabin crew..", I was not going to cause a scene and be an offender because the hostesses have obvious issues with doing their required tasks as a norm!

Our main server had already moaned, quite audibly, next to the kitchen ( without drawing the curtains) about a customer being full of herself, etc!

The whole trip from then on was very uncomfortable for me and I felt like the hostesses are there for fullfill their power needs over the passengers instead of doing their job.

Both hostesses would walk passed passengers and bump into them, whenever I looked up, without excusing themselves. ( No manners?!)

The one hostess dropped a piece of rubbish on a lady in front of me, realized this and walked off. The lady shook her head and removed the paper from her lap and put it to the side. The hostess then returns and searched for this dropped item but just walks off when she cannot find it on the lady. ( Cat got her tongue, or is the hostess too good to be polite and excuse herself ?)

Apart from trying to be assertive the main server was really rude and both had an angry personality on them - even when the main server served our meals she was making the guy next to me uncomfortable by serving me and forgetting him and then returning to offer him the same also. ( other sublte power plays this girl used on us I am not going to mention here and now..)

I also am a customer service rep and could not believe what I was seeing and experiencing! Are these young people trained to be rude and unprofessional and create a cruel atmosphere on a 10 hr flight? Have they even been trained to stay friendly and have the attitude of mutual respect between customer and client (hostess and passenger in this case)? If they have been trained, send them back to training as clearly they have not grasped the concept of customer service !

No other airline does that ! It has been nothing but a pleasure to fly KLM, Ryan Air, BMI and actually all other airlines ! Their hostess are friendly and accommodating and make you feel welcome to be on board with them!

I must admit, I was happy to relax in the next BMI flight and vouched to avoid SAA in future!

Never mind me, but there is still the World Cup coming up ...so if I were SAA management, I would look into getting the hostesses at a professional level!

I'll try and be brief You will think I'm kidding, but this really did all happen in one day.

OR Tambo International - Johannesburg, South Africa

Flight SA 190 - Johannesburg - Mauritius

1. My stolen baggage report (A GPS and Braai Tongs were stolen) from a month earlier had not been handled yet and I was told to come back in a week's time.

2. At the check in, I walked up to check in as there was nothing going on at one of the counters. I was told that "she is not ready". As I walked back she muttered "that's why you wait until you are told to move!". There was literally no-one in sight to tell me or anyone anything.

3. When I got to a different counter I greeted a gentleman, back-sliding on his chair who barely acknowledged my presence. While he handled my passport and credit card he spent most of the time smiling at the lady on his right and speaking to the man on his left. I understand and speak 3 African languages, so I knew that his conversation certainly wasn't work related. He was being deliberately slow.

4. There was no special assistance ready for an elderly wheel-chair bound Mauritian lady.

5. As I fell asleep on the plane the woman behind me started blaring Afrikaans dance music through a speaker so the whole cabin could hear every word and beat loudly.

6. The 1st hostess smiled and said it was fine.

7. The 2nd hostess asked that it be switched off.

8. The 1st hostess said turn it back up again, the 1st hostess will get over it.

9. The woman was part of a large "work" group going on a trip. Nashua if I'm not mistaken.

10. The group was given their first "legal" alcoholic beverage by the hostess.

11. With the promise of a tip, the hostess continued to supply liquor to the group.

12. They became increasingly intoxicated and started shouting, singing and swearing (cussing) while the music was blaring.

13. They gave a sizeable tip/bribe to the hostesses.

14. Upon arrival I saw that my zip lock had been cut off.

15. My toiletry bag was wide open inside.

16. There is no sticker on my case saying that my bag was searched.

17. SAA will be charging up to R10 000 for one way domestic trips in June/July 2010.

18. I fly more than twice a month on SAA.

My husband and I traveled on South African Airways during a recent safari trip to Africa. My husband's suitcase was stolen and items were pilfered from my suitcase during a flight from Cape Town through Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia. South African Airways has not honored our claims, telling us they are not liable. They suggest we should file a claim with our personal insurance company. I find their passing the buck to be reprehensible. My husband's suitacse was never recovered, yet South AFrican Airways never recompensed my husband for the problems he suffered. He had only the clothes on his back and needed to make do for the remainder of our trip, 5 days. I have contacted many different people at the airline company, but they all send polite rejection letters back to me. They have finally paid $400 but we lost nearly $2000 worth of goods. This ruined our trip, to say the least, plus we are disgusted that a company can get away with treating paying customers so poorly. I want to file a complaint and get some recompense for the items lost and for the trouble they have put me through. How do I go about doing that?

I booked flight tickets online for my parents. Since it was a sponsored ticket, I emailed the authentication documents together with my ID & credit card as requested when booking. When my parents arrived at the airport, they were told that the details had not been received. I tried to fax the documents to them at that late hour but due to their poor poor customer service & non-operational fax lines, it was received too late for my parents to get onto the flight. I then had to drive to the airport & paid R1060 to rebook the flight while it was entirely their fault.

I've been charged R1626.00 rebooking and penalties for me and my two boys on 14/8/2009 for being 10 min late for our 6:40am flight?Re-scheduled flight was suppoese to leave 8:00am we only boarded 7:50. I've got all this in writing from staff @ boarding gate etc.
I feel i experienced the worst customer service and this from a senior person.
Not everybody has got funds to re-pay and I want a refund even if I need to take this to the daily dispatch paper with staff names etc.
Is there some senior person who can assist this is like my 4th mail and obviously E/London Airport does not bother to reply

Hi, I cant tell you how dissapoined I am about your service. Twice I booked a ticket. And both times my boss got to the airport that ticket was not booked, paid by credit card over the internet. Why why why. I had so many trouble at work. Although I did it the way I always did, after the first flight this happened. I phoned confirmed and again on the flight to east london, once again the ticket was not available. Although the ticket was paid for. How im I surpose to sort this out. How will I ever know if these flights will be available for my boss to fly. Its giving me a bad image. (I would appreciate a letter stating what the problem was and an excuse) [protected]@projectworks.Co. Za (Daniella [protected]) flight # [protected] - conj

My wife and I were travelling from Sydney to Capetown and our wedding rings and her engagement ring were stolen from our baggage while in the safekeeping of SAA in Jo'burg Airport. As if this wasn't bad enough, the response to this very serious issue has been amazingly low key. Our £3, 000 loss has been compensated to the tune of just $20, the absolute minimum payment. But more upsetting than the financilal loss has been the lack of effort by SAA to investigate the matter. They say they are leaving it to the police to investigate but the truth is the police cannot cope with the huge amount of pilfering (polite word for thievery) that is going on every day by SAA employees (is this a staff benefit in leui of bonus?).

I have never recieved such bad service. I booked a flight for my 7year old daughter to go visit her gran, was told that I must pay for the booking by the 25th of july, now my booking has been cancelled and I can't get through to customer care! Pathetic, I have spend more time on the phone booking a flight that it would've taken me to drive her down there myself (from cape town to jhb !)
They are the only airlines in sa that offer services (If you can call it that) for unaccomanied minors.

On 21st March, at midday, the team of 12 Managers from Eastern Province Caterers checked into Cape Town International airport. We were boarding flight SA 1389 back to Port Elizabeth. Approx 12.30

Since we were traveling as a group, we checked in together, and I, as the Regional Manager for Eastern Cape, took possession of the Identity books, and queued for check-in.

When I reached the front of the queue, your employee Elias ( check in clerk – domestic departures) stated that I had to join the queue, which I advised him I had already done, and now reached the front of the queue.

He would not serve me or my colleague Mrs de Lange, and called for the person behind me to come forward.
Despite me stating I had already joined the queue and reached him, he would not serve me, and instructed me to rejoin the queue.

I asked for his name, which he refused, and camouflaged his name tag in his pocket.

I proceeded to rejoin the queue, re-waited my turn and then was served by the assistant to his side.

I asked the assistant what his name was, and all they were able to provide was “Elias”.
I asked the surname, they didn’t know.?
I asked for the supervisor, who seemed to be protecting him. The lady called Maureen also didn’t know Elias surname.

I again asked Elias for his surname, and attempted to take his badge out of “hiding” in his pocket, so I could review his name.
He grabbed hold of it, preventing me .

In frustration I then took out my cell phone camera and took a photo of the individual. I told him I would report him to his seniors.
I then proceed to go through security x- ray machine, to board my plane that was being called.

Ellias then jumped over the counter and alerted security. The security officers stopped processing my bags and confiscated my boarding pass, preventing me from boarding my flight. They were calling my name to urgently board. I was ushered to go back to check- in and explain why I took a photo. Another man who was security, did not get his name either, insisted that I erase the picture. I said I would not until I get the mans ID from his card. I was told that its confidential to look at his name card, and that I was illegally taking a picture. I requested more than a dozen times to have his name and show his card, he refused. His superior also asked for him to comply, and he refused out right at least 4 times. I was adamant that I was not going to loose my flight so I took back my boarding pass from his superior and went through security checks and ran to board the plane. The plane was upheld because of me and your security antics. The culprit was your Mr Ellias. It will be on camera, if you care to look at it.

This incident caused major embarrassment and humiliation in front of all my Managers.

The employee had no right to demand that I rejoin a queue I had already joined to checkin.

He had no means to determine that I had not queued, and did not follow strict common code of discipline, that the “customer is always right”

Once I advised that I had queued, he could have merely served me (after all, I had to get served by someone, in order to board the flight, whether it was him or someone else, it would have to be an SAA employee).

He purposefully denied me my right to take his name.

He purposefully hid his name tag.

He purposefully didn’t advise his surname to his supervisor when asked.

Only when I took the photograph of him, did he jump into action and spring forward and try and grab my cell phone.

I did offer to delete the photo, in exchange for his name, which he refused.

I believe such treatment of passengers is unacceptable.

He requires disciplinary action, and to be fired.

I require to be updated on the progress of these developments, when the date of disciplinary has been set.

Our company makes regular use of SAA as it’s preferred air partner, but I believe such poor quality personnel do not deserve to be employed by SAA, and tarnish their good name.

I await your further feedback.

Yours faithfully

Robert Buck
[protected]

as usual SAA does it again, and it seems nothing will happen to the thieves either.On a trip from PE to Zambia i had to book my luggage in and then requested to collect and re book my luggage at JHB Airport myself, as i wanted to make sure it all arrives safely.well on my arival in JHB all my bags were there, so i re booked them for my trip to Lusaka.on arival at Lusaka i was told that 1 of my bags stayed behind in JHB and will be on the next flight arriving.Next morning went back to airport and my bag was there but it was opened and i discovered some of my personal items missing.Now i wonder how this could happen when all my bags are taken at the same time but then 1 mysteriously cannot be put on the same flight.Is there such a huge syndicate operational at SAA that they keep bags behind to pilfer, or maybe the management of SAA allows there staff to keep a certain amount of bags to steal from?is this the way SAA give out ther xmas bonusses to staff?anyway my complaint is in and will have to wait for 21 days to get an answer on if they are going to compensate me for the loss i had.does anyone know of an institution where i can lay a complaint on this issue, or is it just my loss ans SAA and there staff get away with this once again?

I am complaining about the total disregard demonstrated by SAA, I booked a return flight from Seoul, South Korea to Durban, South Africa via SAA(I am a SA citizen and was trying to support your proudly SA company).

To my dismay a week before my flight I was hospitalised with a threatened abortion and placed on strict bed-rest for 1, 5 weeks and warned by my ob/gyn that flying is out of the question.
He put together a letter for SAA, so I was given a refund.However you have penalised me KRW200 000 ie. approx R1560.

I understand you run a business and a total refund is unlikely but what about a credit that I can use at a later stage.

I am appalled by your disregard for unexpected illnesses that arises and your lack of customer service.

The Executive office of customer care responded with:
I am sorry to hear of your health and wish you a speedy recovery. South African Airways has a terms and conditions for all their fares, you were booked on a discounted fare. The discretion is on the Manager to give you a full refund, I have also noted that your booking was made a travel agent. Whilst we sympathise with you, we cannot assist you any further.

So not only did I not make the mgt discretion list but I am especially penalised because I booked in advance and got a discount and I went through a travel agent vs. going direct!

We were booked on the SAA 424 flight from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg then on KLM 592 to Amsterdam and Aer Lingus 605 to Dublin.

The thing that wrecked the end of our holiday was the disappearance of our bags. We made the mistake of putting our bags straight through to Dublin rather than take them off in Johannesburg to put them on the KLM flight to Amsterdam ourselves.

One of the bags turned up a week and a half later with things stolen out of it and clothes it it that were not ours and the other one is still lost 2 and a half weeks later as I am writing this. At no point in time was the last carrier, which is made responsible, able to tell us where our bags were. In fact what irony that the system they swear by is the one that had the lady from baggage saying both our bags were still listed as missing and location unknown when the Aer Lingus van turned up outside our house with the first bag.

Three days ago was 2 weeks since we landed and three days after the first bag turned up. I had written to my father, who lives in Pretoria, asking him if he would go to JHB to look for the bag that was still missing and untraceable. It took him 10 minutes to find the bag there amongst of a flood of other bags condemned to the same fate as mine was. It had been opened, things had been stolen, the name tag had been ripped off as well as the label bearing the flights it was supposed to be on, gone. He then proceeded to get the bag put on the next KLM flight to Amsterdam. It has now been 3 days since then and Aer Lingus is still incapable of telling me where my bag is with their system that �¢ï¿½ï¿½works�¢ï¿½ï¿½.

Special thanks would go first and foremost to the South African baggage handlers who helped themselves to Christmas presents in people's bags and then leave the bags to rot. Secondly I would also love to thank the South African airways managers for not having these criminals put in jail never mind fired. And then also special thanks goes out to the airport authorities all over the world, KLM and Aer Lingus in this case, that are incapable of enforcing some kind of retrieval operation when they clearly know where the bags went missing and why.

What I would recommend for anyone flying to South Africa:

1)If you can avoid JHB and fly to CT, do it.

2)If you have to fly through JHB, make sure to take your bag off the flight you are on and see to it personally that it goes on the next flight.

3)If you can survive with a large hand luggage do it even if it means posting stuff yourself you buy on holiday.

4)Attach a name tag containing your phone number with international prefix to your bag that is very difficult to remove.

5)When the person at check-in puts the label on your bag make sure it goes on in such a way that would not be ripped open if someone were to search through your bag for valuables.

6)Don't trust anyone when they say that are doing everything possible to get your bag back because they are doing nothing other than waiting for it to turn up.

Lately the last SAA Express flight of the day out of Gaborone and Namibia seems to be 1-3 hours late in a business as usual fashion. This is not a pleasant experience for a business traveller after a hard day's work, neither for a traveller having to catch a connecting flight in Jhb.
The issue is not as such as being late, but certainly the airways can by default notify all travellers on the particular flight by arround 14ho0 on the day via sms that they expect the flight will be running and hour or more late, so that the traveller can perhaps make better use of his/her time than just sitting at the airport, or waisting time rushing to the airport just to go and sit and wait for an hour or 3 extra unnecessary.
Example, from Lesotho, my flight was cancelled as we were going through customs already and SAA Express did not offer any accommodation, nor any transport to a hotel to passengers for the night - this is not a way to treat your Voyager customers in a foreign country.

On 25 Setember 2007 I purchased a ticket from the SAA hub at JHB Airport for an amount of GBP586. The ticket was a fully refundable one way ticket from London to JHB, leaving on 13 January 2008.

I subsequently cancelled the ticket via the London SAA Office and was given a reference number for the refund. I was told that I could only claim the refund from the SAA hub at JHB Airport - notwithstanding that I am currently resident in the UK. I was visiting family in South Africa recently and on 1 April I went to the SAA hub to claim my refund. I was told (a) the reference number given to me was incorrect and (b) I could not claim a refund from the SAA hub. I was given a contact number and told that if I called that number my refund would be arranged. When I returned to London I called the number I was given which turned out to be the incorrect number - it was actually for SAA's General Counsel. I was given another number to call.

When I called the number I was given I was told that the London Office of SAA was who should arrange my refund and I was given yet another number to call. This number turned out to be a fax number! The London Office of SAA insist that I have to claim my refund from SAA South Africa.

I have called the number they gave me (customer care) 5 times and still have not spoken to anyone who can help me. It is now 7 months since I purchased my ticket and 3 months since I first tried to claim my refund with no luck. Notwithstanding that I am South African and a Silver Voyager Membner, I will never fly SAA again and will never recommend it to anyone. This experience has left me anything but "proudly South African"!

I'm not sure whether writing this letter will have any effect in improving the service of SAA or maybe just relieve myself of bundled agitation of dealing with continuous incompetence of bumbling idiots as found in SAA mainly ground staff I may add.

Knowing how busy domestic departures gets at OR Tambo I purposely was there 2.5 hours ahead of flight departure Sunday 9th March, to be found in a manageable queue of about 25 people. This was soon dispelled as going to be smooth, as there was of course 1 individual manning a check-in counter for this queue and he was taking on average anything from 10-15 mins booking in a person, amongst chatting to his friends with no sense of urgency. This combined with individuals who just pushed in from the side of the queue allowed people who have been waiting for 1.5 hrs only to get more and more angry. To top it all the pretty dolled up SAA ladies strutted around as if they were God's gift to someone (definitely not SAA customers) and eventually one of them decided to open up another check-in only to serve 1 customer and then take a friendly telephone call and disappear now leaving a queue in excess of probably 150 people seething in anger. Of course SAA will never have any form of communication in the form of an announcement or a manager manning his staff, talking to customers (probably too terrified they will get killed for being incompetent) just to let us know what was going on. I thought the cherry on the cake must have been when one of the computer terminals started bellowing out smoke only to be told by a client that it was burning whom they thought was shouting at them for service and ignored him till he really raised his voice in concern for the developing fire which was then approached in a circus like panic. Trying to tell them to just switch off the computer which would kill power to the item fell on deaf ears. So a lot of bellowing clouds of dry powder from extinguishers later it was doused.

Only after I had to threaten death to one of the "managers" of SAA (who only came into view with the fire) to open up another terminal was such that he said quote "I didn't realize there was only one person" assisting the ever growing queue which by this time was almost in the car park I'm sure... Well to cut a long story short (this could go on for ever & ever), I had my ticket and off to the gate only to wait there till almost boarding time to then be told to board through another gate and then have your flight delayed by almost an hour, REALLY was the cherry on top and of course zero communication from SAA in this regard is always relevant.

We won't even talk about the food on SAA planes, fish or beef... I think those of you whom have flown will know what I'm talking about, as the food goes quite well together with SAA service as one putrid experience! Experiences of SAA of this nature are now more common place than not and seem to happen almost every time I fly and I do fly once a month every month. I just hope this rot does not cascade into the maintenance section of SAA as we will be in for some scary flights.

Mr W. van der Merwe
Seriously happy SAA Customer... NOT!