SAA loyalty dies with lack of service

Item: SAA
Rating: 1
Author: vanessa P

My husband & I boarded flight SA280 on Tuesday 5th of January 2016 from Jhb - Perth ETD 21:00, after a very disappointing and frustrating check-in process, including an hour long phonecall to SAA who couldnt find our names on there system for the flight. We were in seated in row 44A & B. The vent cover on the floor next to my window seat was off and the pipes, etc were visible. This did not instill confidence in us right from the start. We pointed it out to one of the flight attendants who called for someone to take a look. One of the male crew members assured me it was nothing to worry about and offered to put the cover back on if i preferred - which i did. By time we landed the cover was coming loose again. Soon after takeoff my husband reached for the inflight entertainment control and discovered it wasn’t working and brought it to the attention of one of the crew who said she would look into it. He had to ask about it a few more times before we were told that they would look into the problem once the meal had been served. Eventually after asking AGAIN they said they are rebooting the entertainment system thinking this would solve the problem - which it didn’t. The rebooting was doing nothing to solve the problem of the entertainment controller, 4-5 hours into the flight my husband called another flight attendant and showed her the entertainment controller which had no light and didn’t come on and she also said she would see what she could do about it, and sadly she never came back to us either. As i had worn jeans for the flight (as it is usually pretty cold once you are in the air, i was waiting for the temperature to drop. Well, the temperature in the area of our seat in the cabin never cooled down, in fact it heated up. We brought it to the attention of the crew 3 times, and every time they would downplay as if its normal and ask us to wait 20min for the cold air to circulate through the cabin. I also told them that it is their duty to inform us (the passengers) of what’s going on once we have reported it to them and not up to us to keep coming back to ask them about the problems. Needless to say the temperature issue wasn’t resolved, and my husband eventually took his shirt off due to the heat, while i was left to sweat it out. We were left wondering if the plane was even flight worthy and contemplating our fate on it. The cabin lights were also left on long after the meal was served and I had to get up and ask when they were being turned off. Whoever was responsible for checking the plane before takeoff either didn’t do their job or were happy to send a plane FULL of people into the air on a plane that wasn’t up to standard. Aside from these issues, we had issues struggling to check-in online, and i was on the phone with SAA for an hour and they said they couldn’t find us on their system or even trace it through my credit card payment. The departure time on our original tickets said 21:25, but the plane left at 21:00. After all my years of flying and being loyal to SAA, i am so very disappointed at the unacceptable level of ‘service’ on this flight. This flight was a huge disgrace to the airline and the country - definitely not worthy of the ‘proudly South African’ by line. Once we landed, and disembarked my husband went to the SAA counter to tell them of the substandard flight we had experienced. No one was at the counter, as they were clearing/cleaning the plane - he managed to talk to someone on the phone and explained our dissatisfaction. The lady clearing/cleaning the plane rep**** that she thought it was unusual that so many blankets on the plane were unopened. This clearly confirms the temperature issue that would have been felt by a large number of passengers. I sent an email through to SAA customer care on the 7th of January. On the 18th January I got in touch with SAA Perth who referred me to SAA Sydney and one of their staff kindly requested I email her the message I sent them and offered to look into the matter and try to get hold of the appropriate people in SA to respond. She told me I should have received a system generated email from SAA within 21 days of my email with a reference number on. Well I never did receive such an email. I continued emailing SAA Sydney and South Africa through February. In spite of her (Carolyn Hush - SAA Sydney's) efforts, and my calling to follow up if she had heard anything, there was still no response from South Africa. On the 18th April I sent another email and on the 19th April, SAA Sydney advised they had copied their Country Manager into the communications and they expected an imminent reply from South Africa. On the 8th May I sent another email requesting this matter to be escalated higher up. On the 17th May, I eventually received a reply from SAA SOUTH AFRICA with a very weak apology and absolutely no compensation. They end their letter this way: Thank you for taking the time to write to us. Please do not hesitate to contact us, should you have a matter you may care to bring to our attention. We look forward to the privilege of serving your family’s air travel needs again soon 'the priviledgeof serving your family's air travel needs' - there was no service. I rep**** to SAA South Africa on the 18th May stating my dissatisfaction with the very delayed and weak response and requested the matter to be escalated higher up. I still have not had a response to that email and when I sent a copy to SAA Syndey, their reply was that the decision made by Customer Care on 17th May is final. I think this is such poor, unacceptable lack of service from when I tried to book in online on the 5th of January, through to the check-in process, continuing on board the flight and I am appealing to Hello Peter to take this matter up for me. I currently live in Perth, Western Australia and fly home regularly to visit my mother land and family and was always proud to fly SAA, but this experience showed me that customer loyalty means nothing to them and neither does customer service. Please contact me via mobile + ********** 7962 or email **********

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