South African Airways / FlySAA.com
reviews and complaints

My secretary purchased a ticket online for my wife on the 16 August 2012 from East London to Cape Town for the 04 October 2012. She used my surname - Singh instead of her maiden surname - Lala with the same id number [protected] not knowing that her ID book surname has not been changed. When i received the confirmation of the booking I discovered that the surname was incorrect. I then asked the secretary to request the SAA booking official to change the surname.
The response was that it cannot be done and i should cancell the ticket and purchase a new one. The implication being that i have to pay for a new ticket again. The reason given was that it is due to security measures and its policy of SAA.
I find this rule of SAA to be unfair and not in accordance with the South African Consumer protection Act. I agree that a mistake has occured and which could be corrected at no cost to the client as sufficient time of notice was given to correct it and the same ID number is used. The problem was the surname only.
I request SAA to refund my cost of the first ticket R2 763.00 as no security risk was violated by me towards SAA and the mistake was brought to the attention of SAA reservation official - team leader the next day for correction and the ID number was not changed.
Awaiting your response
Kind regards
D R singh

My colluge and I was on a bussiness trip from cape town to moscow. We had to fly from ct to johannesburg, and rom there to munich. Arriving at jhb, we heard that our flight was cancelled to munich and had to fly to frankfurt. Our bagaase was booked straight thru in cape town to moscow. After 2 hours trying to check in by hand in jhb, and asking the sal lady who has done the check-inn's, she promised us that our luggage will arrive with us in moscow. Needless to say it didnt happend! Arriving in frankfurt the next morning 7 o clock, my colluge and I was supposed to fly out lunchtime (12h00) to maoscow. The sal lady in jhb has printed our boarding passes for this flight, but once again, it was a dissaster. My boarding pass showed 12h00 boardig, and my colluge's boarding pass showed 07h00 that morning. Needless to say he didnt make that fligh... But we were suppossed to fly together the whole time. We couldnt get that day another flight from frankfurt to moscow... The sal counter in frankfurt only opend at 17h00 that day... Redicilous! The only flight that we then could get was to fly via poland, which we did that night! In poland we did get a connecting flight to moscow. We arrived that monday morning 03h00 (Moscow time) in moscow. Once again, our baggage was not there! Three hours later we had to get up, getting ready to go and see our first client... Once again without any luggage... We were 7 days in russia, arrived back in cape town, and still our luggage is gone! Arriving in ct, we went to "lost and found" department of sal, reporting again that our luugage is gone, the answer the sal employee gave was "it is not sal problem, because we open the case in moscow at the"lost and found", it is out of their hands... Who's fault was it in the first place that our luggage whent missing? Can you believe this?
Never ever will we fly with"sal" again!

My girlfriend and I were travelling to PE on 3rd February this year.

Our plane was cancelled as result poor weather in PE. When we went downstairs to collect our baggage, the whole planes people realised they had been broken into. We then lodged a claim (Ref: JNBSA71579) and herewith the rotten service I have received from the 3 ladies involved. Poor professionalism and that from the Manager who I thought would know about customer service, but No, it was not to be….

On the 7th March, I then followed up with Baggage Services as I had heard nothing. On the 16th a Vuyokazi Bhili replied and said it would be resolved by the next week. Nothing until end May when R 400 was paid into my account. This was not the full amount of the claim.
A letter then followed that had the biggest nonsense on it and I replied I was not happy on the 23rd April accordingly:

Thank you for your attached reply dated 29 February. Based on your reply below, I assume the date is wrong and should have read 29 March 2012?

Furthermore, you surely did not think that I am going to accept your poor response. It’s unacceptable and if this is what you call customer service, then lord help us.

The 2nd attachment shows the weight SAA would have recorded on the system, so the fact you refer to my baggage weight unknown, HOGWASH! (2 barcoded slips)

Please provide me some answers to my questions:
1. Does SAA condone and support the thieves working in your organisation, or is this just the norm in SA?
2. What was the outcome of video footage on my baggage, all throughout its travels in the terminal building?
3. Was the guilty SAA thieving employees caught?
4. Does this need to be reported to the Consumer Protection Act?
5. Would you like me to tell all my Facebook contacts of how SAA kicks their loyal customers. A perfect HelloPeter case?
6. Are you expecting me to approach my insurance and tarnish my no claim bonus at my expense to brush this issue under the carpet? I don’t think so!
7. Finally, would the same response be given if it directly affected a SAA employee or Management?
8. Did it then really take this long to come up with such a poor response, written on a standard “Dear Johnny” format, but then your response does actually show the incompetence on SAA’s part. At least you got my details correct, well done!

No reply to this mail, so I mailed her back the 30th.

I then called the Manager, Bali Mabena. Sounded really helpful, but NO, she was even more useless than Vuyo.

Mimi Lokwe then called, Vuyo just ignored me from there.. She came back as well and reiterated their position of part payment with all the airline jargon.

I then replied again of my non acceptance of the offer on 28th May. NO response from Mimi, so I mailed her again on 4th June. She replied and asked me to send all correspondence I had with Vuyo. Such a primitive system that they can’t even look up my details……

I mailed her again on the 11th of June as I had no answer yet. She then replied again on 15th June that they not going to relook my case. I this time she telephonically screwed it up with quotes like:

From “ I’ll come back to you tomorrow”, “your claim has been paid in full, oops, think I got the wrong customer, I’ll come back to you” and “please send me your reference number AGAIN”

SAA Baggage Services responded as follows to my questions:

Dear Mr. Hopkins,

Thank you for your email below, to answer your questions.
• No sir we do not condone and support thieves.
• We did not get any requests to view the footage.
• No thieves were caught.
• You can report this to the consumer affair it is your right.
• SAA treats their customers like royalty and would never inconvenience them intentionally.
• Yes the same response would be given to an SAA employee because that is how we ### our claims.
• My apologies on our side for the late response.

Sir, I am truly sorry for all the inconvenience that this has caused you and if we have given you an impression that we do not care about you our valued customer my sincere apologies.

So on 2 July I wrote to [protected]@flysaa.com and [protected]@flysaa.com .

A Judith Toorn came back and wrote:

Dear Mr. Hopkins,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 2 July 2012.

Your comments are important to the success of South African Airways and provide us with the information needed to evaluate and improve our service.

Service is certainly a distinguishing factor between airlines and I am sorry that we have not offered you the service you have been accustomed to when you made a baggage claim with us in February 2012. We sincerely regret the unprofessional manner in which the claim was handled and for the lack of professionalism.

Having regard to the foregoing and in the absence of the declaration of excess value, we are of the opinion that your claim has been dealt with equitably and must therefore support the previous decision, and have to respectfully decline your request for a further payout to your claim.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We value your support and welcome you to contact us whenever you have a matter you may care to bring to our attention.

In conclusion:
1. Is this acceptable?
2. Is this good customer service?
3. Is this “ Royalty” she is referring too?
4. All the poor service I have been receiving?
5. SAA’s liability?

Hi,

I am a constant traveller and recently decided to use SAA to fly to Zambia. It was the 20th of March, when we had a flight back to South Africa with South African Airways (SA) 67 (South African AirwaysConfirmation Number:ZNUWS9) at 7:20 am from Zambia. When we checked in, the woman there asked us for a Yellow fever card. I was quite surprised, since just a few months before I travelled to Zambia with Namibian Airlines and they did not ask for any such card. The woman told us that it was a requirement of South Africa. That confused me even more, since I travelled to so many countries in recent months (Pakistan, Dubai, Zambia, India etc) and non asked me for a Yellow fever card in order to allow me to travel to South Africa. However, they still did not allow us to board the plane.

Thus, at 6am in the morning, we had to phone from Zambia to South Africa and all our family members were in panic, trying to look for our Yellow fever cards, get them scanned and have them sent to us. And the trauma which we were going through was even worst. Bear in mind that we had a 73 year old granny with us.

Noteworthy is that we were given an offer to bribe the staff with $500 and they would allow us on the plane.

However, after much persuasion, they finally did allow us.

I then waited for my next trips (thats why I only write to you now), and I decided to rather use Emirates. I flew to Dubai and Morocco, and they allowed us to board the planes without asking for any Yellow Fever cards or anything. Thus, if it was a law of South Africa that a South African citizen can only board a plan if he has a Yellow Fever Card, did Emirates violate this law? Just before that I flew on Saudi Airlines, did they too violate this law? In fact, I flew to Maurituis with SAA, and there too you did not ask for any such card. Thus, did SAA themselves also violate this law? Obviously, the answer is no since there is no such law! Thus, it is obvious that your staff just wanted a $500 bribe, and because of that they put us and our families through such tension.

To further aggrevate the situation, I wrote to SAA twice. The first time I did no get any reply or even courteous apology. I wrote again and they wrote that they are investigating. To date, I got no response.

This shows the status of this airlines. I will most definitely not recommend South African Airways to anyone, neither will I ever dare to fly with them again (especially if I dont have enough money for bribes). From their ground staff to their customer service, it seems that all their departments lack basic conduct.

Regards

I kindly asked Chantal Knoesen, flight SA338 if she can help me and put my hand luggage away and she refused Apparently they are not allowed to (that I don’t belief for one moment). I’m a pregnant women I went to Cape Town Fertility Clinic because of all the miscarriages I had SO I don’t want to lift heavy things. I don’t want to do anything that can give me complications. And she just refused to help me…

We wanted to book and extra baggage on Delta Airline but were unable to do so online for the amount of USD60 and were told that we could only do it at the airport for the amount of USD70.

We accepted that we had no choice but to do such so you can imagine the horror when I was told at Durban Ushaka Airport by Ashika (the lady who was checking her in) that she had to pay the amount of R1650 which when divided by an exchange rate of ZAR8 = USD206! Then to add insult to injury, not only was Ashika extremely rude but put in the incorrect CVV number into the credit card machine and of course the company credit card was declined and I had to pay personally!

We obviously would like a refund as we were only suppose to pay USD70 and not USD206. We have a written letter from Delta explaining to SAA that they made a mistake and they still will not refund the money. They claim they are looking into it but 6 weeks later I am still waiting. They do not return my calls. Can anyone help me here?

On 2nd May 2010 - the following items were taken from my locked checked in luggage, whilst flying from Bangkok to Luanda (Via SA):

1. Cigarettes x 200
2. Memory Stick (Pro Magic Gate 16GB) x 3
3. SD Memory Card 4 GB x 2
4. Ipod Touch 32GB x 1
5. Confectionary - various
6. Toiletries - various

The above items total in excess of 400GBP

Over 2 years later, despite SAA asking me to file the claim with them, nothing has been done - they offered me 60 USD for damage to my bag and said I should have contacted my insurers, although they asked me to fill in their paperwork and make the claim with them for the theft of my goods.

It is very shamefull and regretable for the cpuntry like south africa to have thieves working at your o. R tambo international airport. People pack their goods, pach them well, but your employee sneakly steal. It is a poor and regretable behaviour of your staff working on luggage handling. Passangers luggage. I flew from maputo to johanesburg on 18 january 2012, on sa145 and then on sa268 to franfurt, and then I flew on lufthansa until I got to amsterdam airpor. I was suprosed to find my givench stollen from bag priory to cut and damage the pad lock I put on it. I heared before about the theft sotory at o. R tambo, but this time I was targeted. It is poor and very shameful behaviour to the person who managed to take my perfume, to the airport, and to the country. Do not regret to find few people flying through your country, it is because of theft and luggage desappearance. I will now use kenya route to get to mozambique. If you want to find who took my perfume, call the team that worked on luggade handling from sa145 to sa268 to franfurt, you will find.

It has become ridiculous how expensive the flights between Jhb and Pmb have become. I travel constantly between the two cities on a weekly basis and it costs R1500 return by road (not including wear and tear) and up to R3000 by air. This past weekend i had paid R3000 for my flight and fully expected to travel on the larger plane, but to my dismay we had to travel from Pmb to Jhb on the smaller plane. An absolute rip off. Surely there are a few pilot enterpreneurs who could take a few passengers backwards and forwards on a weekly basis at a much less cost?
N. Arkell

I flew to South Africa on South African Airways in September, they lost my luggage for 3 days, requiring me to "re-purchase" all of my essential supplies (having literally nothing but the clothes on your back before you head into the jungle will teach you a lot about prioritization) before heading off on Safari in Botswana. I received my luggage back 9 days later when I was in Germany. The total cost for the supplies I purchased was $575 (I really purchased only the minimum amount of things for a week and a half in the rough). Two months after I returned I finally received a reimbursement check for my purchases in South Africa of only $375, citing that according to their "system" my luggage was only lost for 5 days, I was shocked at how unconcerned and irresponsible one company could be towards their customers.So now I will be wandering the internet looking for any forum to tell my story & warn people about the evil ways or South African Airways.
Also, I should mention that on my flight, they forgot to bring headphones on the plane, anyone who did not bring their own was not able to watch the in flight entertainment. They also did not bring enough food, so instead of having your choice of a meat or vegetarian dish, you got whatever was left over. Altogether a pretty disappointing experience.

I arrived at an airport in Brasil for a series of flights, one including a stop-over in Johannesburg. I was asked if I had my current yellow fever vaccination. I didn't, so was refused boarding. I complained to my travel agent, who re-booked my flight for me but informed me that they had no idea that South Africa was now insisting on yellow fever vaccines from travellers who spend more than 6 days in the country. I checked on the South African Airways page, and only found the yellow fever warning after searching for it. On the very front page was a travel alert regarding Qantas Airways. Anyone with a television or that reads a newspaper knows about the strike. To me, an important travel advisory is that South Africa now requires yellow fever vaccination for 46 countries, and as South African Airways is the main carrier, they should be showing this on their front page. Not only is it a requirement, but there is a 10 day incubation period. Due to this lack of information, I incurred substantial financial loss including a 10 day stay at a hotel.

I had a flight from JHB to CPT on the 19th of Aug 09 (flight number SA375). On arrival in CPT, 1 of my bags was not on the conveyer belt.. 3 of our 4 bags checked in did arrive but the 4th one with all my clothes, toiletries and presentation material was missing. I did report the bag as missing and explained to the SAL employee that I have a urgent presentation that I need to do tomorrow morning for which I will need to be well presented (how do you do that without clean clothes etc). The response from the lady was that I can phone them at 05:00 in the am to find out if they found my bag and that I'm not allowed to purchase any goods without authorisation from her manager. I phoned the baggage enquiries centre at around 08:00 on the 20th to find out if they did find my bag on which they responded yes and assured me that the bag will be delivered to my hotel within an hour (as my presentation starts at 09:00). Needless to say - at around 12:00 the bag has still not arrived at the hotel. I had to do a presentation in dirty clothes and was not able to clean myself as all my toiletries was in the missing bag. Bag arrived at about 14:00 without any apology or nothing. Not even a sorry.

By the time I arrived at my destination (in Windhoek) via JNB airport on 9/14/2011, my Sony DSC-H20 digital camera and a pair of Nikon binoculars were stolen from the baggage I checked in at JNB. My Flight # was SA 74. Both items were small enough to be easily concealed in the baggage handler's pockets). My larger Nikon camera was not taken, nor was my DVD player in the same bag (they would have been much more difficult to conceal. I don't expect to be compensated via the airlines or my travel insurance company, Access America. I was told by the insurance co. that I needed to report it within the first 24 hours, however I was in a very remote area and was dealing with a medical emergency, so that took top priority. After reading what others have experienced, I consider myself lucky that more of my valuable were not stolen! I am currently unemployed, so it's not so easy to replace these valuables anytime soon.

I was booked on flight SA 1776 from Gaborone to Johannesburh for departure time 13h05. At 13h10 we were informed that the flight was delayed but no reson given, or when the new departure time would be, when I enquire it was blamed on a technical fault, absolute [protected]@t. there service is absolute pathetic, I have also missed a connecting flight with another airline, and had to pay for a new ticket

recently we arrived back to Australia from South Africa on a SA flight from Joburg to perth . On the flight i wanted to purchase something duty free from their catalogue and went to the steward in charge of duty free. he told me I couldnt use my American Express card as it didnt have a CRV number and did i have another credit card. I went back to my seat and got my Matercard made my purchase and was questioned about my CRV number as it was a bit worn . i didnt think anything of iot until 5 days after returning home i received a phone call from my bank asking if i had over the last 3 days authorised $8000 worth of ailine ticket all over the place pf course i hadnt. The receipt that I was received also had missing information I know it originated from SA airlines as this was the only place I used my credit card whilst away for the month. We now have all the inconvenience of closed accounts. We also had 2 mobile phones stolen from our luggage and my suitcase that was put into the hold after I boarded had been completely gone through. if you cant trust the on board staff who can you trust . Really Sucks

I have made a booking in april 2011 for my husband and i, I had to purchase miles for a 1 way return to upgrade. Saa took of the cash from my cheque account and then again from my saa voyager credit card. Till date I do not have my refund on the 1st amount taken off my cheque account.
It took my a month to get saa voyager to upload my purchased miles, and it's taking me forever for them to upgrade my ticket. I will be flying in september and it's now july, I hope it will get sorted out before I leave!
My family all fly with saa as we are voyager members, but this will be my last trip on saa.
As a south african it is very sad that we cannot count on our airlines!

On May 8th, Mothers day, I flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg on SA334. I was very excited because I would see both my kids on mother’s day (My son lives in Jhb and my daughter in Cape Town) My flight was suppose to leave at 12h55. At 13h20 the flight was delayed to 15h15. Then at every hour it was delayed for another hour. Nobody discussed this with us (the passengers) and the only info we had was looking at the flight schedule sign. At 18h00 it was delayed again until 21h15. Then all of a sudden at 20h00 the flight was cancelled. Again nobody discussed this with us and we went to the SAA counter only to find out we've been put on another flight at 21h30 SA332. This was confusing because SA332 was also delayed from 12pm just before our flight SA334. Our luggage was strewn in the middle of the airport floor behind the counters and if we didn't ask about our luggage we wouldn't have known that we had to check the luggage in again. I personally told a few passengers about the luggage because they didn't know and they had to run from the boarding gates to go and get their luggage. We only left at 22h00 and got to jhb after midnight were I was stranded because my shuttle wasn't there anymore.
I flew back on Saturday May 14th on SA343 and on arrival in Cape Town, SAA lost my vanity case! Up till now I haven't heard anything.
I would like to know what SAA is going to do about this inconvenience and why we were not informed WHY the flight was delayed for 9 hours and WHY couldn't SAA told us earlier so that we could make other arrangements?
I was also not informed by the baggage claim office that I should put a claim in for my vanity case and the contents!

my checked baggage was damaged and part of its content- documents, travel guides, photographs, logbook, brochures, elctronics-stolen; yet the company takes no responsibility for the damage or theft, claiming that I should have considered my backpack as CARRY ON baggage. In fact, that was what I wanted it to be, but the clerk at Jo-burgcheck-in desk refused to let me carry it with me. Therefore, I believe the company is directly to blame for the loss; however, after thousands of phone calls and e-mails without reply, and 4 months after the theft took place, they sent me a quick simple note saying the process will be closed because SA does not liability for such goods. Irreplaceable, priceless things which I had collected throughout my stay in South Africa vanished overnight and they did not even consider a compensation for the grief such loss entails!

SAA treat their clients like Criminals. Yesterday I witnessed a young gentleman being violated from all his rights as a South African. A young, white, overweight blond ticket sales assistant at the OR Thambo airport refused to assist a gentleman. The gentleman then asked for her name and to see her manager, what happened next was just surreal: this woman screamed at the gentleman at the top of her voice... Demanding that he leaves, the other assistance instead of assisting the gentleman they gathered around her and started screaming this a gentleman, who seemed he wanted to pay the airlines. They then threatened him with the police to control the matter... In actual fact the SAA crew laughed at him: I have never witnessed anything like this before. I HOPE that man files a complaint and that woman looses her job. Another thing: eating in front of your clients is just tacky and common.

I made a reservation (Reservation 2nyqyq) on january 13th to depart from richard’s bay to johannesburg on january 14th, with a round-trip return on january 22nd. I received verbal confirmation from the reservation agent I spoke to over the phone. She sent an email confirmation as well, but as I had no access to my email while I was in johannesburg, I was unable to access it until after I returned to richard’s bay. Regardless, even if I had, it would’ve been too late and I would’ve already missed the return flight saa mistakenly booked for me. I would still be in this situation.

Here is what happened. I arrived at the airport on january 22 and was told I did not have a reservation. When I went to the customer service desk, I was told my return flight was booked for a return on january 15th, which is not the date I gave the reservation agent. I was then charged 580r for an additional ticket to return to richard’s bay. The original flight details that I gave the booking agent were a flight from richard’s bay to johannesburg at 11:50am on friday, january 14th, with a return at 8:35am on saturday, january 22nd. The customer service agent at the airport maintains that the ticket was booked for a return on january 15th, which clearly makes no sense - I told the booking agent to look into flights returning on the following friday morning and saturday. If I had wanted to fly back the next day, I would’ve said that in the conversation, would I not? And obviously it would have to be for the following friday or saturday, since
If I decided to fly back on friday, it would be difficult for me to have a departing flight at 11:50am with a return flight at 8:35am that same day.

The customer service agent told me my only recourse was to contact saa and ask them to pull the recorded conversation so they could listen and confirm that the agent made the mistake, and booked the reservation incorrectly. I made the call for the reservation from the following phone number on january 13th, 2011: [protected]. I am asking that saa pull the conversation and send me a copy of the recording for my own records. If the agent made the mistake, as I am contesting, then it will be in the recorded conversation, and I would like saa to refund me the price of the ticket (581 r). I have now emailed customer service 5 times about this. I haven't received a single response, except a forwarded email from a representative telling another representative to handle this and contact me. That was from several weeks ago. I have since sent emails to both of these people, and have not received a single response.

This company should be put out of business, pure and simple. This is the second instance of complete and utter incompetence, as well as poor customer service, in less than a year, and considering i've only flown the airline a few times, that's pretty pathetic.