Avoid SAA at any cost
 

I think SAA is the worst, I am often using the IAD-JNB route, the planes are old and dirty, food and service is terrible, staff is rude. On Feb 12-13, SAA208 was cancelled two days in the row!!! The A330 fully depreciated junk that they got from Iberia had a shattered windshield and they couldn’t replace it for two days. Even if you are with the Star Alliance, I would suggest you use Delta or BA. SAA is a disgrace and should be kicked out of Star Alliance.

Sorry to hear about your frustrating experience with canceled flights. All airlines encounter challenges with replacement parts. Your hyperbole about throwing SAA out of *A doesn't serve you well at all. Clearly, there are many others who have had positive and/or very positive experiences with SAA.

Thank you for your reply, my conclusions aren’t based on one incident only, I have been based in JNB for 2.5 years now and fly SAA almost every month (business and economy). There are just too many issues with this airline (lost/stolen items from the luggage, rude staff, old planes, etc.). I am not looking forward to my flight every time I use SAA.

I thought that route was operated by an A340.

And while I certainly have had issues with their customer service, I found the in-flight product in both Y and C to be quite reasonable.

Dear andreyhaas,

We're truly sorry to learn of your disappointment with our services. Please consider sharing your impressions and concrete suggestions for improvements with our Customer Care Department in North America via email at ([email protected]) so that we can learn from your experience.

As for the unfortunate flight irregularities on February 13th/14th, we apologize for the delay you experienced and any disruption to your travel plans. As safety of our passengers and crew is always of primary concern, unfortunately occasional technical issues may arise that require us to delay or cancel a flight. In circumstances such as this, we do our best to accommodate our customers to minimize any inconvenience.

Please accept our sincerest apologize. We hope to have the opportunity and privilege of serving your travel needs again soon.


With kind regards,

South African Airways, North America

Dear sbm12,
Thank you for your post, yes you are correct, they operate A340 on this route, including the old plane that SAA got from Iberia.

It looks like SAA208 was cancelled three days in the row: on February 12, 13 and 14. I understand that sometimes airplanes can have technical issues, but taking three days to replace a windshield!? Is it normal?

On February 13, the gate staff at IAD called transit police a few times when some people started asking questions about compensation, reasons for the delay, etc. One passenger almost got arrested for simply filming the heated discussion on his mobile phone!!! There were passengers there (some with small kids) from the Feb 12 SAA208 flight and for them this was a second cancellation. The food vouchers that we got from SAA (US$25 for dinner and US$15 for breakfast) were good for food only, but not for beverages.

Since it appears someone from SAA is reading this thread. Slightly off topic but not by much since I'm avoiding them as well for my last 2 trips to JNB in 4 months.

I haven't flown SAA because:

1) On a Y fare you only give 70% EQMs when credited to United
2) The inability to use frequent flyer miles from star alliance partners to upgrade Y/B fares to business class.

You want business from United flyers get your act together... How many years has it been now since SAA stated they were in the process of making Star Alliance upgrades possible? That coupled with the EQMs and the battles I have read on here with getting miles to post made it a easy decision to avoid your US flights.

Don't worry it just cost you approximately $1500 on my $3200 ticket next week.

Cheers!

I think I have been getting 100% of the EQM to my United account, but quite a few times I had to write United in order for them to appear. Star Alliance upgrades aren’t possible.

While I don't think SAA should be thrown out of *, I concur that the ex-Iberia A340's seem quite dirty. I recently flew LHR-FRA-JNB-DUR return with SA one way and LH on the return. The LH flights were spotless and a huge contrast to the dirty SA planes.

I also didn't get my mileage posted to my Aeroplan account on the JNB-DUR portions even though I was flying paid J. I wrote to Aeroplan about it and they said SAA had no record of me flying the route.

That said, I've found the service in J generally ok and the SA lounges are about par with what I'd expect from a *Gold lounge.

Another crap *alliance member
 

Happily my first and last flight with SA was from PLZ to JNB in C and yes, the plane was dirty from the tray table to the crumbs on the seat and carpet.

SA is excluding itself from the *alliance by refusing F passengers from fellow *alliance airlines accesss to its Cycad lounge in JNB. All this topped by unpleasant and incompetent staff.

My experiences with SAA have always been excellent...with the ground staff and esp. with the inflight staff. Of course, I have never experienced one of the ex-IB A340's so I cannot comment on that.

Well, financially, SAA is a money loosing machine that hasn’t been profitable for several years, I guess this is the main reason why the cut costs everywhere, from cleaning and staff training to safety(by buying second hand aircrafts).

Dear SAAUSA,
Thank you for your post, I would like to point out to your attention the following: (i) SAA experienced “flight irregularities” on February 12, February13, and February 14, on each of these days the flight SAA208 was cancelled; (ii) airlines with the primary concern for “safety of our passengers and crew” do not buy second hand, depreciated aircrafts; (iii) when you try to accommodate your customers in such situations you might consider providing them with some type of monetary compensation instead of “we are sorry letters with discount offers".

Just like Lufthansa/Swiss, right? And Singapore, too.

My experiences with ground staff - especially in IAD - were not very good, but in the air they've been quite nice IME.

I flew the IAD-JNB route a few weeks ago an ironically I flew the former Iberia A340-300 aircraft in both directions (I am an airplane nerd and keep track of tail numbers of aircraft I fly). Both aircraft have been refurbished to include new Economy Class seats with the same AVOD that is on SAA's brand new A330-200's. If I did not know otherwise, both these aircraft look brand new with the refurbuishments. Looking forward to flying SAA's brand new A320's that I understand they started taking delivery of last month for the Africa domestic / regional routes.

I am really pleased to see that SAAUSA is active on this blog. I recently started flying with SAA again and see a marked improvement. I just returned from EZE in biz class, one of the best flights I have had in my 20 years of flying. Its all about the "seat" and the "crew". Well done.

[QUOTE=sbm12;18027364]Just like Lufthansa/Swiss, right? And Singapore, too.
QUOTE]

With the difference that LX/LH/OS clearly communicate this on the *alliance website: http://www.starallianceemployees.com...GUIDE_2011.pdf , page 149

The designated *alliance F lounge being their Senator lounges.

For SQ there is no problem when showing them the printed rules - SYD lounge attendants being the most unpleasant. (The Private Room in SIN is not an F lounge.)

Parrish, SAAUSA is based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. SAA doesn’t fly there. For all we know this could be just a US PR/Marketing company contracted by SAA to raise SAA public profile in the US.

It is odd that there has been no response since.

andreyhaas: As you mention, South African Airways has their North America headquarters located in Fort Lauderdale. It is also where their Customer Care Department and E-Commerce Department for North America is located. If you read any of the FT posts related to SAA in the "Other Middle East & Africa" forum, you will see that SAAUSA frequently posts and respond to customers inquiries. The SAAUSA posts/replies are generated by this office and not a PR company that is under contract with SAA.

Today I got another feel of the SAA experience; I was booked in Y on the flight SA1735 to WDN from JNB. When I got to the ticketing desk, I was told that this is a South African Express flight code-shared with SAA and since South African Express isn’t a member of *A, there will be no miles accrual for this flight. However, the ticketing agent said that I can still use the lounge as a gold *A member. When I got to the lounge, I was told, in a quite a rude way, that I can’t use the lounge either. Just want to let everyone know about one more way how SAA can screw you.

Like when flying MI as *alliance gold you have no lounge access in SIN, except when flying C. At least they are clear as it is a MI and not an SQ flight.

Lounge access with SA looks like a hot topic :D. For rudeness our South African friends at the JNB SA lounges can not be beaten.

Yes, just to give you a sense, I picked up one of the free internet access vouchers when I just got to the SAA lounge counter at JNB, this was before they told me that I can’t use the lounge because I was on the SAA Express flight. When I was leaving, one of the ladies at the counter said: “put the internet voucher back!”. This is how SAA treats *A Gold members!

good experience
 

Was in JNB two times in 2010 and 2011. I was allowed into the lounge with 5 kids and the staff was very nice.
Had another additional flight from HKG to JNB with a clean plane and nice cabin crew as well.

5 kids :mad: . Well, Africans are child and family friendly ;) .

I used the lounge in PLZ without issue while flying on Express.
Not quite. MI operates as a separate carrier while SAExpress is part of SA, similar to UAX or CoEx does in the USA.

I agree and disagree with parts of the posts. I have been going to South Africa from the US for some 15 years.

I think SAA J class is a great product. Economy is not too bad. Their continuing to use the 340 from Iberia is criminal. I have had them from IAD-JNB in J and was furious of the inferior product. I have always found service on board in any class to be excellent. Their catering is also very good.

Ground staff in South Africa is horrendous. Totally incompetent, rude, careless of work and just does not care. If you ever run into irregular ops or a cancelation you will experience the worst service of any airline. I was on a SAA flt from JNB - MUC which was canceled. There are rules for airlines flying into the EU for such an occasion. SAA refused any compentsation, hotels, food. Their continued response was " We are African we do not follow European rules". In comlaining to customer service over many months ( and I was in paid J and Star Gold) they totally ignored me. They took care of the native South Africans including hotels; foreigners slept on the floor of the airport.

If you manage to get on board, and the flight takes off it will be a great experience. If you ever have to deal with any kind of problem on the ground, you have my sympathy.

Actually, they are correct in this policy. Only EU-flagged carriers are required to offer the "right to care" benefits for flights into the EU. For the other carriers only flights departing from a covered airport require the compensation/care.

TonyBurr,
Sorry to hear about your experience with SAA in JNB, I agree with all your statements. LH would be a much better option for flying from JNB to MUC.

I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate. ;)

I don't share your experience. Readily admitting I haven't flown IAD-JNB, my experience with SAA between Europe and SA and internally in SA has been fine.My experience, too.What should they do - allow access to a non-qualifying passenger? I magine the lounge agents are qualified to know who has access which AFAIK for *A Gold means flying with a *A airline.Non-sequitur. You wanted to use the complimentary internet voucher in the lounge as a non-qualifying passenger, couldn't get in but still expected complimentary internet?

It's all very confusing but I don't think this the case.

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Express says:... so a stragic alliance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Express

It's not part of Star Alliance and its flights are excluded from the *A African Airpass - an old link at http://www.airfares.com.sg/airfares/...canAirpass.htm - see Flight Restrictions.

It's good to highlight the differences between mainline SA and its local SA partners who generally don't offer *A gold benefits such as extra baggage allowance.

As for lounge access, before I had *A Gold I used my Priority Pass card when flying domestically with SA and/or its partners.

Roger,
Thank you for your post. I think the most confusing part about SA Express is that it is difficult to say whether you are booked on SAA or SAA Express, both airlines have the same code (“SA”), the only difference is that SAA Express is using four digits for their flights numbers, e.g. SA1234 while SAA flights are mostly triple digits (SA123). I just wanted to let people know so that they can avoid any future misunderstandings.

With regards to your comment on the internet voucher, I think it would be good for SAA staff to start using the words like “thank you”, “please”’, “excuse me” etc.

I am really glad that your experience with SAA was superb, but clearly they aren’t always doing a good job, there are several posts even in this tread that would support this statement. Also, if you try to google “do not fly SAA” you will find lots of interesting info as well. There are several blogs fully devoted to the “do not fly SAA” theme, I guess this is another indicator of clients attitude towards SAA.

Curious. I would read the status of SAExpress as being the same as UAExpress or ACExpress or any of the dozens of regional carriers that fly for the mainline STAR carriers. While none of these regional carriers are STAR members, when contracted to fly routes on behalf of STAR members they are recognized in the same fashion as their contracting carrier. In fact, Aeroplan clearly recognizes SAX flights for mileage accumulation, so I would be sure other STAR programs do so too:

AE "All Scheduled flights operated by South African Airways, South African Airlink and South African Express are eligible"

As long as the flight is booked as a SAA flight, all STARGold benefits should be extended.

Well, this is not what is going to happen with SAA Express, even if your flight is booked as SA flight, you aren't going to get any *A beneftis if it is operated by SAA Express. Pay attention to the flight #, all SA oerated flights have only 3 didgits (e.g. SA123), while SA Express flights will have four (e.g. SA1234 format)

You now receive 150% EQM for Y and B, M, K, H, S, and Q fares

http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mark...spx?ItemId=316

I flew on the refurbished Iberia 340 in business (ZS-SXG) and it was a perfectly acceptable standard. Seats aren't quite horizontal but I had a great sleep between Perth and Johannesburg. Economy now has seat back screens so little discernable difference between these two aircraft and the rest of the fleet. If I refused to fly every airline that had crumbs on the trays, I'd have very limited travel options so moral of the story is we all have our preferences and SAA is one of the airlines I'm happy to fly.

This is not only about how they look inside, these refurbished aircrafts also have thechnical issues, on Feb 12-13, SAA208 (refurbished Iberia 340) was cancelled for two days in the row. I heard that the windshield got cracked on the way from JNB to Dakar, the crew didn’t want to proceed to JNB, but got pushed by HQ, by the time the flight arrived to IAD, the windshield was shattered. They ordered a replacement from SA which came next day, but didn’t fit because the Iberia’s 340 are older models, so that had to contact the Airbus that provided the right windshield. I can’t guarantee this is all truth, but heard it from SA staff.

When I flew the Iberia A340's in Y there was a very noticeable difference also in the seat pitch. Did that change with the addition of the AVOD?

I think they replaced all the seats and interiors of the refurbished Iberia and other SA airplanes are the same, including the seat pitch. The seta maps are a bit different though.

I clearly had a lucky turn of events. I was planning on taking this cancelled route but opted to fly SFO-FRA-JNB on 12th. I found the SA leg to JNB to be a very pleasant experience, even in Y.