SAFIAR RIP-OFF - OVERCHARGED TICKETS

Yesterday 27 April 2021, was my worse travel experience ever with Safair! I booked a SAFAIR flight via eDreams, as we were unable to book flights directly via the airline website, due to collapse in their system, which we unaware of the time. Upon arriving at departing airport (King Shaka International - Dbn) at 5am, we were told that ALL eDreams booking was cancelled and that customers must contact eDreams to claim refunds, and will have to buy new tickets at SAFIAR kiosk to fly out that day.

Needless to say there was chaos with customers fighting with SAFIR employees, as SAFIR marked up all their prices by more than 3-4 times normal regulated flat rates of R800 incl 1bag.

- FlySafair's Kirby Gordon said that the outage started during the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"It's incredibly unfortunate for us as unfortunately, we're not able to make new reservations or change existing ones at this stage but fortunately, all air systems are still operational so flights can still operate without any concerns there. We are also able to sell tickets at the airport for flights departing in the next 24 to 48 hours."

Gordon said that they were still selling tickets.

"Customers are welcome to approach our ticket sales desks and We're selling all flights there for a flat fee of R800, including a check bag. We hope to have the same service available through call centre." this as per review reported by LAUREN ISAACS - Eyewitness News reporter based in Cape Town.

We as customers were forced to purchase flights charged between R2000 to R3600, one way only! Myself including many other customers created an immediate whatsapp group, and are horrified at the experiences we all have shared and would like for this to be investigated on our behalf. One customer paid the R3600, because he his wife had an inter-connecting flight from JHB to Kenya, that she could not afford to miss. This was more than a terrible experience of inconvenience, leaving some customers flabbergasted and in disarray with no monies available to fly back same day due to the mark-up prices!

We are looking into this been investigated further by the relevant regulatory bodies.