Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - Expectations if flying SAA / Delta to South Africa

If you are flying SAA home to South africa over the holidays, and have spent mucho $ on a premium seat and are expecting the seating shown in the ad's and flyers Delta/ SAA have been sending .. be prepared to be dissapointed.

It seems that most of the planes they are sending to North America do NOT have the new seating and you will be welcomed by the same old sub-standard product.

(see this link for what they are advertising)

http://www.flysaa.com/in_flight_information/Lounges_Cabins/business_class_cabin.html )

And if you try to find out what days they do fly the refurbished equipment no-one at saa or delta can tell you.

Just thought someone out there might want to know.

Ons gaan huistoe!!!!

and i wouldn't hold my breath about when they will put the seat in.

just flew back biz class last sunday from jnb. same old uncomfortable seats.

they've apparently installed the seats on the london run from sa (which has competition from virgin and british airways). since there is no competition to the usa, i'm sure they have little incentive to bring out the product any time soon.

suggest you consider flying to sa via london which really is not too bad a way to go.

Did the CPT route last week also got the old seats... the new ones on the outbound were FAB.

Trying to get them to tell me what equipment willbe operating on my next trip in 3 weeks... they will or cannot tell me....

Interesting on the new SAA seats. We flew SAA long ago in First and I liked the (old) seats, but there is def. need for improvement. I hate it when an airline only upgrades their services due to competition.
The flights to the US are LONG and to not provide the new seats is unacceptable.
If competition is the reason, then they need to upgrade to all cities in Europe, as they compete with LH, AF, SR, etc(with LH having a nice first class)., and to Hong Kong and Australia, again, CX and QF as competitors. I am flying to SA via HKG on CX, a much superior product. SAA will have to compete with CX and SQ!

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MD
AA PLT,1 MLN Miles+
Hilton Gold
Sheraton Gold

ATL-JNB on 3 FEB: Old Seats

JNB-ATL on 11 FEB: New seats (despite being told the day before on the phone by an agent that this configuration was ONLY being flown to London).

There are 2 versions of the new configuration.
- Lie flat seats in Business ( only on the london flights from JNB
- 50" pitch on every other ATL flight.

SAA willnot complete the refurbishment of the 8 747-400's untill August of this year.

Its a disgrace that they advertise new seats onthe website,and only offer the service on limited flights.