Mango airlines flight delays and no refunds received and breakdown of communication

I had a flight booked with Mango Airlines from Port elizabeth to joburg on the 7th April 2021, on arrival for checkin I was informed that the flight was delayed. I had a connecting international flight in johannesburg that would be missed due to their delay.

I asked why since the delay was due to an aircraft having a technical problem in joburg earlier that day nobody had contacted me to inform me of the delay so I could evaluate whether I should make other arrangements for travel but was told by their customer services desk that that had informed us by updating the boards in the terminal. Somehow when I tried to explain that this was not acceptable as I was already there it seemed to go over their heads and they just repeated saying that they had informed passengers by updating the boards. I did eventually receive an sms informing me of the delay, however it arrived 3 hours after the original departure time so too little too late in my opinion.

As a result of this delay I had to book a last minute flight with safair but because the turnaround time to catch my international flight was so tight I had to leave my luggage behind which caused its own problems for the first 2 weeks of my travels and thousands of rands in dhl costs to get my bags to me.

Mango help desk informed me that they would note that I had a connecting flight and that I should email the refunds department and they will refund my ticket price.

This all seemed to go relatively smoothly as I received a response saying my refund was approved and it had been handed over to finance. After two weeks of still receiving no refund I sent an email to try get a follow up and was told that refunds take 7-14 working days to process.

It is now almost a month and I still have not received any refund and all my emails to the refund department are now going unanswered.

If somehow mango gets bailed out by our government (which is basically throwing money away) I will personally never fly with them again and I would strongly suggest others do the same.