I made a mistake - but FlySafair HATES human beings, because they make mistakes

I had the worst experience with FlySafair on the 24/09. What started off as a good day (I had arrived the same morning from Joburg for my son's birthday) ended on such a low and in a lost customer from me. I fly monthly between Durban and Johannesburg, you can check, and I am now a lost customer and I will also share this experience with my friends, family, colleagues and anybody else who cares to listen. I booked a flight from Port Elizabeth to OR Tambo, meant to depart PLZ at 20:25. I then proceeded to check in and selected seat 16A, booked an Uber for 19:00. On my way to the airport, something said to check my boarding pass. It made no sense as boarding time given on it was 17:35, departure at 18:05 and arrival in JNB was to be 19:50. How, when I had booked a 20:25 flight to land in Joburg at 22:05. I immediately contacted the contact centre and found it closed as my scheduled Uber had been for 19:00 and I was by then in it en-route to the airport. At exactly 19:06pm I called the PE airport directly (ACSA) in light of that, and I was transferred to the FlySafair offices there. The call lasted 7 min 5 seconds according to my phone records. I spoke to a lady who confirmed the worst: I had, in error, booked my ticket the other way, from JNB to PLZ instead of from PLZ to JNB.

I pleaded with the lady, that this was an honest mistake and she informed me there was nothing that could be done and I would need to book and pay for another ticket. How cruel, though, that I had to just accept that I have just flushed so much money down the drain? Could she perhaps not even have used her discretion and seen that this is an honest mistake, I mean I was there, in PE and not in JNB where I needed to be, she could see that, otherwise I would not have needed to buy another ticket again. Are the different issues we experience that affect our travels as passengers, not ever looked at on a case by case basis? Is the staff perhaps not adequately trained and equipped or even empowered enough to be able to assess situations as they happen and affect people differently and apply themselves accordingly? How do I pay close to R3600 in less than 10 hours apart, to the airline for two different flights, one of which I was never on (your records would show this) as I was stuck on the other side? I felt that this was really cruel, especially when the lady voluntarily told me that if it had been the airline that made the error, something could have and would have been done to rectify this, but because the mistake had been made by me nothing could be done. Really? So this is a rectifiable mistake, it just depends on who errs? But it shouldn't be the customer, it cannot be the customer, the very person who the airline had in mind and meant to serve when it was founded?

This upset me even further as I cannot understand how your airline would seem to not understand that its passengers are human beings, and by our very nature, we humans are prone to mistakes every once in a while. To not have any mechanism or process in place to accommodate this very basic trait is saddening because someone else has made this mistake before, for it to seem so unprovided for in case of a re occurrence, and someone (even me again) will still err like this in the future.

At this moment I had already checked on the website and the tickets were shown as "sold out". I asked the lady I was speaking to if there was still any point in me proceeding to the airport and whether there was still any space then available as the 20:25 flight was the last of the day, she confirmed that there was. I asked her for assistance with this again, and as before, I was refused. I asked if she could maybe reserve the ticket for me and I would arrive at the airport and make the payment, I was in an Uber, already on my way to her, I could not book online as tickets were sold out on that platform. I explained to her that I feared arriving at the airport and be the one to stand behind the guy buying that last seat and having to return home and not being able to get to work Wednesday morning. I was told that that was not possible. You guys really hate people who make mistakes, right? That is an anomaly to you - making a mistake- innit? It is something that just disgusts your people and is something a customer pays dearly for, I got to understand. I got to the airport, fortunately the seat was still available. I was in tears, the lady that assisted me did not even have a single kind word to say to me, yes I had made a mistake, but there is a fellow being in front of you emotional and you cannot even say a kind word because well they made a mistake not you so being kind is a no-no at FlySafair because even your staff never makes mistakes, they have never made mistakes.

Then I figured, so this flight I was meant to have been on (the 18:05 - 19:50) , according to the erratic booking, is actually the one that came, with my empty seat 16A to fetch me so I could get into seat 28E back to Joburg. I would have spent 75 minutes in PE according to my 24/09 bookings - giving just enough time to just maybe have gone to PE to have supper at the airport. Sounds like fun, maybe I will do it one day, just not now. Right now I am still a struggling employee, trying to start over in life and pick up the pieces - then you experience this and you wonder just how long it will take for you to actually get up again. What a way to have ended my son's 9th birthday.

I will not be using FlySafair again, and I am going to Durban every month end until December. This airline will not even be an option, in case I make a mistake again - you guys despise mistakes and the people who make them, I am sorry I had to be one of the hated. Your airline sucks!