South African Airways

1 of the toilets was broken when we boarded

toilet ran out of toilet paper

No option to choose a meal at check-in

Dinner roll was a brick

No vegetarian option for breakfast

Breakfast Croissant was a brick

Breakfast yogurt was not nice

headphones were broken

Headphones are stiff and uncomfortable with crappy sound

As headphone uses double mic pin I could only hear through 1 ear with my personal headphones.

TV stopped working a third of the way through the flight

other TV had issues off and on

His remote/controller never worked

no real system for boarding plane

On a recent internal Africa journey the SAA systems were down at port of departure so they moved to manual.

As a result we were treated as NOT having completed that leg of a longer journey with the further result that we were removed by SAA from our pre-booked seats to London.

We wasted half our short en route stay in South Africa trying to sort out at Oliver Tambo their (SAA) problems.

The only offer of compensation on return was a small credit lasting a year against another flight with SAA. Worthless!!

We are convinced that SAA do not care about their customers and treat complaints as an occupational hazard and at best an irritant. What a shambolic outfit.

Flight SA234 from Joburg to London delayed almost 4 hours. I asked staff several times about food and was told it was being arranged Eventually passengers offered only water and juice. I protested but was told no restaurants open. Result flew on airbus 330 smaller than the 340 and I was woken up after 1 am for supper which I refused and went back to sleep

This was my first trip with SAA and having travelled with over 20 airlines so this is my last on SAA. Another frequent flyer told me at Joburg that if planes are not full so the airlines in South Africa resort to this procedure of flying smaller planes

My girlfriends and I just returned a few days ago from South Africa. We traveled to and from Jburg from JFK on SA Airways. We made a mistake and read some reviews of this airlines prior, so we had some reservations....Well, I'm here to set the record straight!! The plane was clean, the crew was both courteous and professional, and the food was great! I would choose this airline to fly me anywhere!! From the moment we hit the ticket counter until we disembarked, every employee was friendly and helpful!

I do not know where to start with this but here it is I went to South Africa to meet up with my fiancee'in Durban for 5 days, the flight there was long but nice as could be for a 23 hour flight from Columbus, Ohio my first international flight. BUT 2 days before i was suppose to leave I got a stomach bug did not feel I wanted to be sick on a long flight I called and was told ok we can change your flight we will call you for new itinerary, no call so I called back and got disconnected so I called back and get another person and this person did not know what was going on,and said would call me back no call back, I called back and they said ok we will have you scheduled bring doctor's paper, so I call back to check on new itinerary the actual day hours before flight to make sure I had the change and this person has no idea what I'm talking about so while sitting in the ER for my app and still calling them and waiting on them to call me back I had less than a hour to get further than a hour drive so because of their incompetence I have now been declared a no show and my ticket was given away and now I have to buy a new ticket. let me say my original ticket was 1,495.00 US dollars and this person said a new ticket would be 900.00 I was like no way because I called in to reschedule 2 days previous to change my ticket. so now I will say 20 days later and 30 people in SAA ,2 supervisors 3 managers and and calling further into who owns SAA (Star Alliance) and calling the Embassy(I was told to call them back if nothing was accomplished) and so telling SAA I would further call a news crew my ticket went to 900.00 to 895.00 to 2,000 ( which from ONE SAA manager I was told sorry about the inconvenience and do what you need to do He would call me back with new itinerary, he never called back that night I called him back he left for the day would be back in morning at 6 am I call ask for this manager he's in a meeting they would relay a message I gave a hour I call he's busy I call back can't find him would leave him message never calls so asking to speak to another manager which i turned in that other manager so now my ticket went to 250.00 this manager said she was so sorry this had happened and after reviewing my phone conversations and her actually calling me back 2 times and emailing my new itinerary I was finally going home which I paid I don't understand how she got my itinerary done over night and ready by a afternoon flight that 30 people could not do in 19 days so I paid this 250.00 in fee charges because it was the only way to get home so after transferring monies and time change of 6 hours and the not knowing where to stay no transportation, hungry and only 5 days of clothes thru all this I was leaving 25 days total. Let me just say I'm not a happy person HORRIBLE!!!!! and this my friends is why you get names dates and times...South Africa was beautiful but SAA is Bad! VERY BAD! just ONE thanks is to the Manager that finally got it right OH... and actually this is only half of the story wouldn't let me publish without making a rating SAA don't even deserve one star

I flew from Nelspruit to Johanesburg a few months ago and was FORCED to check in my carry-on. Of course it was stolen- and noone has provided me with answers or even returned my calls/emails. I finally got a check for $320. That just covers my phone bill to call South African Airways to keep asking what is going on!!! Ridiculous. DO NOT FLY SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS!!

I asked the four staff member at OT Intr. airport to assist me with my voager card, that i have forgotten the pin. I was very brutely told that they do not have time to help me (As i was the only person at the counter) the AC was not working in the complete building, as they blame that on getting to hot to THINK. The told me to go onto the web and sort it out, such i did, since Jan 07 to date with endless mails to ALL the email address I could find on the South African Airways, even baggage calim, not ONE responce back, I call all the provided numbers on the web site, and all divert me back to customer care, and then the lines get cut for reasons i do not know why.

So if their is anybody in the hole of the South African airways department that can help me fix my voager card, get me some details i need - I chanange you get in contact with me.

I rate SAA as the worst airline when it comes to customer care, especialy those at your OT intr. outlet.

If they were working for me, with such unprofessional client service, i will not think twice to fire them.

On December 18th we embarked on what would be our first trip to South Africa. Our flight was booked thru United Airlines in August of 2012 with a connecting flight from our home in Boston to New York via American Airline. We arrived at the airport from Boston at 8:35am on the morning of December 18th, 2 hours and 5 minutes prior to our SAA flight leaving for Johannesburg, scheduled for 10:40am that morning. However, American Airlines managed to lose/misplace my husband’s luggage. After tracking down a baggage handler and begging him to look for the bag, after all my suitcase arrived on the conveyor belt within 10 minutes of landing, we were able to retrieve the suitcase and making a run to catch the airport transit train, arriving at the SAA counter at 9:50am.To our surprise, the SAA check in counter was unoccupied. A South African Airways employee sitting in a booth by the stairs and elevators informed us that check in closes 1 hour before departure – I have flown extensively around the world and never ever encountered a closed check in station 50 minutes before the gate closes.We explained to the SAA representative what had happened with my husband’s bag and asked if we could check in at the gate since we were booked on a tour and they expected us to arrive the next day. We pleaded with him; I cried and begged but to no avail. Your employee not only refused to help us but went out of his way to make sure we know he didn’t care. He even turned his back to us and started engaging in a conversation with someone else, just to be sure we get the message. Unfortunately he wasn’t wearing a name tag and we were too distraught to ask for his name although I am sure it will be easy for you to determine who was on call that day.Eventually, my husband got his attention again and asked about catching the flight the next morning. The SAA employee acknowledged that there was space on the flight only to inform us 5 minutes later that the flight is booked solid and that he couldn’t help us anyway because the tickets were issued thru United and we would have to talk to them. All the while we are keeping our eyes on the flight information board and the flight to Johannesburg was still boarding….Since your representative made it very clear to us that he was “done” dealing with us we dashed to another terminal to speak with a United agent. Arriving at their check in counter we had the tremendous fortune to deal with 2 agents who went above and beyond the call of duty to help us. When I explained to the United agents what happened to us with SAA and the check in being closed, they looked at us in disbelieve. They too never heard of such a thing and assured me that at United their first priority is to help people catch their flight! That said, these two “angels” spend the next 30 minutes trying to find us a flight to Johannesburg. Eventually they were successful in securing the LAST 2 seats on a Delta/SAA flight out of Washington DC at 5:30pm that day. Now the problem was on how to get us to DC. The United agents told us that there was a flight leaving LaGuardia at 1pm going into Reagan International Airport and that we could then take a shuttle to Dulles airport to catch the flight. Time was of the essence and running out. If we didn’t make this flight our vacation would be over. A vacation we talked about for the past 10 years and which cost us a lot of money.During this time of pacing and nail biting the departure board showed that the gate for the SAA flight didn’t close until 10:50am and didn’t push away from the gate until 11am!So we rushed to catch a yellow cab to take us to LaGuardia where we had to BUY a ticket to Reagan International airport.We made that 1pm flight and took another shuttle to Dulles International airport, a nail biting ride due to traffic and worries that we may not make it on time. Arriving at Dulles around 4pm we managed to check in 1:30 minutes prior to the SAA flight leaving to Johannesburg via Dakar.Thinking we can finally take a breath from the whirlwind of catching flights and shuttles we decided to have a snack at a bar located just across from the gate. After we ordered my husband noticed that there were no more passengers waiting in line to board. He decided to walk over and ask the gate agent when the last boarding call would be announced. He was told last call would be in 10 minutes – one hour before plane departure!? We both though this was ridiculous but we didn’t want to take a chance and left the restaurant without having our meal and boarded the plane only to discover that the plane was not leaving for over an hour.When we finally arrived at our destination we had lost a whole day of vacation and sightseeing as well as incurred additional costs we hadn’t planned on.All if this could have been avoided if the SAA agent in New York would have helped us to catch our originally booked flight.

My Husband and I have recently returned from a holiday in Cape Town. We arrived on flight SA220 at London Heathrow on Monday 19th March, 2012. On our way to the baggage reclaim, we discovered that we had left a pouch on the floor in front of our seat. This contained our passports, ID, Drivers Licence, money etc. My husband raced back to the plane we had just left only to find that the security gate was closed and no personnel he spoke with had the authority to open it. We proceeded to the passport control desk and spoke with the gentleman and explained our predicament. He immediately contacted the SAA desk and within minutes a very nice lady by the name of Susan Molyneaux came to see us and offered to "track down" our pouch. She was gone for a while, yet during that time at least three staff came to see us to update us on what was going on and to re-assure us that everything would be fine.

Some twenty minutes later (the plane was quite a long walk from the Passport Control) Susan returned with the pouch in question, apologising for the delay as the plane in the meantime had been moved to another bay meaning she had to track down its new "parking space". As you can imagine we were so relieved and grateful to Susan who when we offered her a monetary reward, refused to accept it.

We proceeded through passport control and onto baggage reclaim expecting by now that our luggage would be on the lonely conveyer belt waiting for us. No - Susan met us there with another colleague who had off-loaded our bags and placed them on a trolley for us.

We have flown many times with SAA and always found the staff and inflight service and attendance excellent. Although we fly ecomony, we always get five star service! We would not fly to South Africa with any other airline. On this occasion however, Susan flew the SA flag to the limits with her selfless attitude and lovely smile. We won't forget her in a hurry!!

Wendy & Brian Daniels,

Bournemouth.

Booked SAA Flight 208 from Dulles on 2/13/2012. Flight was cancelled late in the evening due to mechanical problems. Flight from previous day had been cancelled for same reason. We were going to the funeral for my mother-in-law who passed away on 2/12/2012. This was earliest flight we could get a reservation for. Flight was cancelled and replacement flight did not leave until almost noon on 2/14 causing us to miss the funeral. The airline didn't care - acted like the cancellation was routine. Gave us a voucher for 25% off a future flight that stated it was good for a year but was back dated two months prior to date we received it so it was really only good for 10 months. Nothing can make up for my husband missing his mother's funeral. Seats in economy are horrible - concave shape which provides no lumbar support, requiring you to sit in an unnatural position and bottom of seat is hard as a board! Complaints to airline were met with same lack of interest - sorry you missed the funeral, etc., etc. Food was awful. Flight attendants all had attitudes and one of them was falling asleep while standing up on our return from Johannesburg on 2/29 on the leg of the trip from Johannesburg to Dakar. How safe was that? We plan to book a group tour in 2013 and will look for any airline other than SAA.