Kulula delays getting worse

We had a flight from OR Tambo to King Shaka on the 3rd of Jan 2020 at 20:55. When it was time for boarding at 20:20, we made our way to the gate where no one had started boarding at 20:50. We went to the counter and asked about the delay and they said it would be delayed by 5-10 minutes. We then decided to get some refreshments, the notice boards were then updated with information that our flight was delayed to 00:20+. We went back to the gate to board for the flight at 23:30 but no one was there besides passengers. We asked staff members who were still around what is going on and we were advised that the gate had changed and that we should have been put on another flight to Durban.

Later on we were advised that there was no other flight to Durban for the night. We waited from 00:00 until 2:30am for the Kulula staff to issue hotel vouchers to us, only then were we told and we be put on the first flight in the morning (4th Jan 2020 @ 7am) and that our bags had left on the other flight which we were supposed to get on and they are now in Durban without us. During these 2 hours of waiting there was no communication from any staff of what the way forward was. No apology was made either.

Further to this, Kulula was sending out SMS’s with the following information, none of which were true: 20:28- flight is now boarding 20:58- flight is delayed and will now depart at 23:00 20:59- flight is delayed and will now depart at 23:45

There were no formal announcements made about gate changes or aircraft changes. The notification boards were not updated with the correct information either.

These are the following issues that I have with this incident: 1. Communication from the airline is nonexistent. There were no announcements made for changes to the flight, the boards were not updated with the correct information, the way forward was not communicated and the stuff is highly unhelpful with poor people s****s. 2. If the flight was changed, when the passengers were boarding, staff should have checked that all the passengers were on board and if not, final boarding calls should have been made at least. This should normally be very important because you have passengers boarding a different flight they were not supposed to be on originally. 3. Our luggage was sent to Durban without checking the corresponding passengers are on board the flight.

Flight reference numbers: Flight number- MN619 Booking references- FTYJET & YDVKIQ