Exceptionally Poor Service Provider - Never Recommended

As a voyager member(s) we are very disgruntled. We followed the normal reporting process and e-mailed SAA two weeks ago with no response... PLEASE BE WARNED! Here is the e-mail sent to SAA:

We reserved 3 seats for the above mentioned trip going to New York and our return flight back to JHB. Before boarding this flight and PAYING for the seat reservations of R750 per passenger each way we had concerns after seeing the complaints registered on SKYTRAX I phoned SAA and raised my concerns about on board entertainment systems being faulty which were laid to rest by your call centre lady saying I must request the ground staff to check entertainment systems before we take off to see if our systems are working so if there are technical problems they can be sorted BEFORE the plane hits the runway then it would be too late.

This however did not prove to be factual at all.

Once at the terminal. The staff on the plane were rude and told us the systems could NOT be checked until the plane was in the air. So we sat back and waited ,hoping all would be okay until the emergency demonstration had been done and the entertainment systems started getting switched on then we started to see the overhead lights coming on one after the other. At this time we were still trying to figure out how to pull our entertainment systems from under our seats. Our seat numbers for the flight going there were Seat 45 D ( ********** 345374) and Seat 45E ( ********** 345376) and Seat 45F ( ********** 345375) and yes just with our luck Seat 45D had a picture but no sound. Seat 45E and 45F no picture or sound. So we complained with the other 20 or odd passengers at the time so they announced they were going to reboot the system .This happened twice. No change. The plane was not full so they started to move passengers around to seats to where there were screens to see if they could find available entertainment. My friend was moved twice and then gave up due to not being successful and came back to her seat next to me. All three of us decided to get through this flight we would take sleeping tablets and see if we could sleep our way through the boredom and then the heat hit. The air was so hot where we were sitting we could not take it another minute so we called the air hostess who said we were sitting on top of the engines and that she could not understand why it would only be our row.

She came back later and said afterwards that there was a very distinct temperature difference between the rest of the plane and our section and the would try and resolve it for us. She was very apologetic and accommodating but this did not help the fact that we were bored to death/sleep deprived and in a sweat box.

WE were hoping that our return flight would be on a different plane as we checked and saw SAA has a few of these planes on their fleet and thought the likelihood of getting such bad luck a second time running in one trip would be unheard of. So no we still went for the extra legroom and kept our reserved seats that we paid the additional R750.00 per person for.

AND lo and behold on flight SA204 departing from JF Kennedy New York ,a very full plane I might add due to a code share of three other planes being added to the same flight. On the 03-01-2019 at 10:40am. Seats I reserved again 45F ( ********** 801701) Seat 45G ( ********** 801700) Seat 45E ( ********** 801699) This time No sound no picture And a sweat box for the full flight So yes a flight from hell and the pursors could not move passengers to try other systems .They tried rebooting systems to no avail. They had a full flight of extremely upset passengers.

The only passengers who were not seething were the ones who brought their own entertainment on the flight or were the very limited few that managed to get a screen that actually worked on this flight.

Did not see many that actually were working.

As a Voyager miles member I am very disgruntled to say I do not see the benefit of flying SAA or even taking the risk of doing another long flight where I will be this uncomfortable and bored senseless to save a few rands.

We are flying to Mexico in 3 months and doing another 9 trips locally this year and I must say when booking SAA is the one option my eye is tending to overlook based on this horrific experience.