Horrible: South African Airways/Mango Airline

On 26 June 2018, via flysaa.com I had booked a flight for 3 adults (Including myself) to fly from Durban to Johannesburg on the 29 June 2018 at 7:25PM

At 12:39 on 29 June 2018 I had made a call to SAA on ********** 722, as I will not have my credit card physically on me during the date of flying and wanted to know if it was going to be an issue at the airport if I did not have the credit card used to make the booking present at the time of boarding/checking in.

The guy from SAA took my booking reference over the phone, then confirmed security questions and confirmed the flight for all three passengers being in front of him on the screen and theres no problems. After my request about the credit card, he took several minutes before coming back and telling me that it wont be an issue as he "has marked on the system that the card will not be present at the time of check in."

All was good and we ended the call.

At 16:30pm on the day of flight, I tried checking in online. Every time I tried checking in online with the booking reference QECDKD, it said that theres no boarding passes available. I tried to access the Manage my Flight option on the SAA website, and it successfully allowed me to access that interface, it showed the 3 of us as passengers. It did not say anything about a payment that still needs to be paid, nor did it mention anything about the flight being delayed or cancelled.

I then contacted SAA again to find out why I can't check in. The guy takes my booking reference and then confirms the security questions. He then asks me what I want. I said again that I could not check in online. He first says that "the reason I can't check in, is that the flight is not paid for." This is when I got a sudden shock and said that's impossible as I went through all the processes and booked with my credit card via the flysaa.com (also note I booked a return flight for Sunday 1 July 2018 through the Mango website using the same credit card and had no issues like this) He asked me to hold on, several minutes went by, he then came back and said "Oh the flight was cancelled by Mango, did they not tell you?" I said no they definitely did not, and he said that I should have received an email from them stating that the flight was cancelled. No communication was received.

Prior to me calling SAA 3 hours before the flight. I did not receive any communication from any party regarding this flight being cancelled. There was also no indication nor communication regarding awaiting payment.

The fact that no one had informed me in any way that this flight was cancelled is appalling to say the least. Completely disrespectful towards my travels. We all have personal reasons as to why we book to travel and when books through an airline such as SAA, you would except a certain courtesy of communication. Had I normally just gone to the airport like any other normal flight situation, what would have been the situation should I have arrived at the airport on time and found out the news that this flight was cancelled? It would have been too late and I would not have been able to fly on the 29 June 2018.

The guy on the line then said he can book me on another flight, but all were booked out for the day and the he could only get out in the morning.

I was then forced to book via any airline and the only flight out available at the time was a British Airways flight departing at 19:15pm on 29 June 2018.

I booked this British Airways flight via Kulula.com and thanks to negligence from South African Airways this trip cost me a total of R7,682.00 (for three passengers to fly one way from King Shaka to OR Tambo) as apposed to the R2,401.08 I spent initially through SAA.

I don't think this is fair. For a company such as South African Airways, you don't expect this kind of unprofessionalism.

I have tried communicating with Mango and SAA directly. I have initially emailed both entities on the 3 July 2018. To date, I have only received an email from Matsido Queench of SAA on 25 July 2018 stating that they have received my email and will get back to me. I have mailed SAA twice since then and still no response. I have given the company an opportunity to communicate and find a resolve but the lack of communication from a company such as SAA means that they don't care about the consumer. That has lead to me taking this public.

Please communicate with me.