SAA is a disgrace

We were booked on the 6:40pm flight to Jhb , with a Connecting flight to Newyork at 9:35pm.

Due to what was apparently operational difficulties, the flight from

Durban only departed at 10:10pm.

We were told if we get on the flight to JHB , they will provide us with accommodation and upgrade our tickets. I was upgraded on the flight to jhb and informed i would be upgraded on my jfk leg.

Once reaching JHB Mr.

Sandile Sityeri. (Manager / superviser at ORT), refused to upgrade us , nor acknowledge the promises made to us in Durban and proceeded to tell us that their durban colleagues were "lying" to us...

If we knew this would be the case we would have stayed in Durban. We were told that , the New york flight was fully booked , so they would upgrade us! Supervisor (Sandile informed us that we would only be upgraded if the flight is fully booked and he then proceeded to tell us that the flight is fully booked but still could not upgrade us! This is conflicting information and completely dispicable service.

We spoke to Mohamed and Nonchlancha Nkoza (acting manager/lead in Durban).

We were told all accommodation was booked out in Durban, so desperately we arrived in JHb, now sitting and dealing with your inefficient manager and teller ( Kagiso Diale).

How exactly are your staff trained to effectively handle a situation and provide adequate compensation ?

At this stage we were given “temporary boarding passes”, as your economy was overbooked by 5, now placing it 9 over booked.

We were told no compensation would be provided in upgrades and told to come back at 6pm?!!!

The manager Sandile Sityeri, told us he has no authority to give upgrades or confirm the flight? So we will be coming back at 6pm , to an overbooked flight , with a chance of missing a second flight to Newyork , instead of simply putting us on Business class?!

What logic is this?

I was booked on a SAA flight SA578 to leave King Shaka Airport in KZN Durban at 18:40 on the 30th of December 2017, to land at OR Tambo in Johannesburg at 19:45.

We were originally informed that the flight would be delayed due to operational reasons and we would only take off at 19:05, then that time rolled around and there was a bunch of people sitting at gate A10 with no information as to what was going on.

Which lead to everyone going back to the front desk to find out what is happening with our flight.

This is where everyone of your employees on duty for some reason all had a different story as to what was actually happening with our flights.

One informed that our plane was circling above waiting to land because there was bad weather yet only to eventually find out that the plane was never here and landed in Maputo.

As a paying customer i literally had to almost beg to be informed what was happening with me and my flights.

Then eventually we were told that the flight was delayed due to bad weather, and that our next flight would leave King Shaka KZN at approximately 21:15…As you can imagine, by now I was seriously irate, as I was already too late to board my connecting flight to JFK.

We were then informed that the flight SA203 will not be waiting for us because there are not enough passengers for them to wait all of 45 mins.

Yet over 50 passengers sat and waited in the Durban airport terminal for a good 4 hours with very little information as to what is going on.

My next connected flight was booked to leave OR Tambo in Johannesburg on SA203 at 21:35 on the 30th of December 2017

Our flight eventually landed at OR Tambo in Johannesburg after 23:00.

Communication thoughout this procedure was virtually NON-EXISTANT, as my colleagues in Johannesburg were giving me more feed back from OR Tambo, than King Shaka had any knowledge of??

I have never experienced such bad customer service from any establishment in my life and i have flown to more than one third world country. Its beyond disgusting to think that this is the standard that our countries very own airline provides.

I have a series of working appointments and prospective business engagements set up in New York for today, and those will now be missed due to inferior service and performance on SAA’s behalf.

I have also booked to attend a NEW YEARS function this even now i would like to know who will compensate or be able to stand in for me? The answer is nobody!

THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!

When my colleague discussed this with passenger services and customer care in Johannesburg last night, she was informed to contact Customer Care today to”Reclaim”her losses from them?!?!

Is this the service that SAA provides to its customers, or is this the norm, as I am led to believe???

This is not an airline that i would as a South African like to say that I am proud of, foreigners on our flight making comments and remarks about our country and how this would never happen in their country. Its utterly dispicable.