Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave

MCT, on an academic basis, would be just 1 hour, on one booking, and given the service frequency to Manchester this wouldn't be much of a problem. But as I say, academic, since there is no way of through checking luggage on separate bookings.

You could be a Plus or Club Europe single ticket to Manchester with a generous lag on it, such as 6 hours theoretical minimum connection, and at least 4 hours (just in case you are in EC261 territory with the JNB service). Then you could bring the actually travel forward to an earlier service should everything fall into place. A 2 hour connection, with luggage recheck would be perfectly OK in normal circumstances so you could plan for that service but book for a much later service.