FlySafair Priority Boarding is a Mirage and Disingenuous!

My name is Nathan Sassman, a regular user of FlySafair, with my most recent flight being Flight FA805 which left Cape Town at around 10am on Sunday, 23 July 2025 for ORTIA. I like FlySafair, as their airfare generally is cheaper than most, they try to be on time and I REALLY like the row-by-row disembarkation started during Covid! I don't really have previous serious concerns about the service received. However having now utilized your priority boarding facility more frequently, I have become increasingly disenchanted with the disingenuity employed by FlySafair in charging R100 (?) for priority boarding which service in reality does not align with the adverts and marketing.

Let me clarify- the FlySafair website asks “Why Opt for Priority Boarding? The answer: “This service is limited to only a few passengers per flight to ensure that you can board, stow your bag and get comfortable in your seat quickly.” So, in essence implying that this service allows some (paying) passengers to board the plane before other travellers, giving them priority access to overhead bins and seating. Bulltwang! And this is where the disingenuity starts….. Firstly, the service is not limited to a limited amount of customers as anyone willing to pay the R100 or whatever the financial cost is, can have access to this “service/benefit/advantage”. Hence, I observed that the priority queue and the non-priority queue is equally long and the priority queue can be longer than the non-priority queue. Secondly, you don't necessarily get to your seat before the non-priority customer and in addition, the overhead bin by your seat can be full when you arrive by your seat. And I’m not talking about being late for my flight. This is rooted in the following reality, namely that the priority boarding “privilege” is only app**** before/in front of the counter at which you must show your ID and boarding pass. In other words whilst you are queuing in front of that counter you are a priority customer and you get to pass that counter before the non-priority customers. That is then the end of priority boarding for you. This is because you then go into a passage where it is announced that the customers sitting in the low number rows must stand on the left and the customers that sits in the high number rows must stand on the right. Now the priority paying customers are mixed with the non-priority customers immediately after you've passed the counter at which your boarding pass and ID has been checked. This morning we had to leave the warm airport terminal only to stand in the cold passage only to watch the passengers disembarking from the plane we were about to use and obviously where the rotation was not completed. And in the Cape Town Winter! If you are in the low number rows, and even if you have not paid for priority already you can now enter the plane in front with those people who paid for priority boarding. And even if you paid for priority boarding, but you are in a high number row, you now have to exit the passage, and in hot weather, cold weather, or wet weather exit the passage, walk down a flight of stairs, cross the tarmac, run the risk of becoming ill, being knocked by a vehicle all some other unimaginable risk or danger, climb a flight of stairs and enter the plane from the rear, and jostle with other passengers who did not pay for priority boarding to get to your seat. So in reality at FlySafair priority boarding is a mirage and only exists in the airport terminal at the boarding gate and only in the queue in front the counter at which your ID and boarding pass is processed. After the counter it is each man, woman or child for themselves jostling to get to their seat as if it's a special on Black Friday! Shame on you FlySafair for taking us for a ride or should I say a flight. Your advert and marketing implies that a person, as a priority paying passenger will be treated as such from when you pay till when you are seated, and which is certainly not the case.