In January 2019 I booked 2 flights with your airline from George to Johannesburg departing on 29th September at 14:20 hours, arriving in Johannesburg at 16:00 hours. This gave us plenty of time to catch our flight from Johannesburg to Melbourne, Australia via Perth booked that evening with SAA at 21:15 hours
In August I paid for excess baggage of 25kg Voucher 0034260704W and my itinerary was reissued, the flight time had changed to 16:30 hours and I was not sure if this was an error or the flight departure had changed.
On arrival in George on the 3rd September, my party went to the Mango Airlines Customer Service Desk to check on this flight, we were informed that it had in fact been rescheduled to 16:30 hours arriving in Johannesburg at 18:10 hours which still allowed enough time to make our connecting flight to Australia.
However when we arrived at George airport on 29th September we discovered our flight was delayed till 18:00 hours, making us concerned we would miss our flight to Australia.
On 29th September we discovered that flight JE826 was delayed till 18:00 hours due to we assumed the bad weather that day. Upon check in we made the ground staff aware that we had a connecting flight from Johannesburg to Australia at 21:15 hours that evening and we and my other 3 travelling companions were assured that we would be there in time to catch that flight.
This unfortunately was not the case, and the flight was closed when we finally collected our bags.
SAA customer service was closed and my friend and I were told by Airport Security that Mango would be able to rebook our flights with SAA, which is where we found our other 3 travelling companions, who had been discussing for a while the fact that we had missed our connecting flight due to the delay in your Airlines arrival time.
The 3 people they had spoken to Chantal, Venceia and Steven had all tried to assist, but could not do much. They had apparently asked to see the Team Leader, one of whom had refused to come out of the office and had in fact admonished the staff members who asked for their assistance on our behalf. Their names were Numhle and Boitumelo I believe
I spoke to either Chantal or Venceia and was informed that Mango Airlines had no liability to help us as per the conditions of our tickets.
One of the Team Leaders did agree however to pay for 1 nights accommodation for the 5 of us and arranged it for us.
We found Cynthia very helpful in taking us to the area where all the hotel shuttle buses arrived and departed from to take us to The Aviator Hotel, and thank her for taking the time to help us.
We returned the next morning and advised SAA the customer service staff member that we had missed our flight the previous day and the reason was due to our flight with Mango Airlines being delayed, only leaving at 18:30 hours.
I asked what they could do to get us to Australia, we were not advised to discuss the matter further with Mango Airlines.
After about 30 minutes we were told that a flight back to Australia would cost AUS $1779.36 per person, and it appeared we had no choice other than to pay the amount asked if we wanted to get home that day.
I did go to Mango Airline Customer Service Desk to get written proof of the said delay from George to Johannesburg for my Travel Insurance Company.
This letter is signed by Patricia Kgabi (Team Leader) and also has Bianca van Zyl (Airport Manager) name on it.
As I have since found out that you are a partner airline of SAA and your team leaders on duty that evening should have been able to rebook our flights back to Australia, I expect at the very least an apology for Mango Airlines poor service.
My travel insurance company wants to know what you intend to do about this incident, and if you plan to offer me a refund or not.
I need this information in writing as to whether you are willing or not to offer a refund.
After a fabulous holiday in South Africa, the experience of dealing with Mango Airlines had been extremely disappointing, with the provision of one night's accommodation & Cynthia being the only positives in the whole debacle.
I await your timely response. My email address is [protected]@gmail.com
Regards
Lynne McClean
