The inhumanity of South African Airways

<p>Good day, </p> <p> </p> <p>I am here to complain about the inhumanity of South Africa Airways. </p> <p> </p> <p>I had an international return flight scheduled since October 2016. I've always been a loyal customer and used SAA as my number one airline. My flight from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town on 8Dec was great, but during my holiday, I encountered a family emergency on the 30th of Dec, I had to drive down to Bloemfontein for. </p> <p> </p> <p>During my time in Bloemfontein, I tried to arrange a small change to my flight, to save me from having to go all the way back to Cape Town and instead, depart from Bloemfontein to Jhb on 4Jan and proceed normally on my connecting flight from Jhb to Dar es Salaam. </p> <p> </p> <p>I phoned the SAA call Centre 4 times to arrange a simple change to my flight. After each call, I was asked to phone back in 3hours to hear what the answer to my request was. Every time I would phone back, it was the same 5minute voice prompts, before getting to a consultant who had bad news and no helpful options, leading to another request, another 3hours of wait and another painful, pointless phone call, costing me over R400 in phone calls and no helpful changes to my flight. </p> <p> </p> <p>In my first request, I was told that no changes could be made and that new tickets were to be purchased, forfeiting over 1200usd worth of tickets. On my second request, I offered to drive down to Jhb, only forfeiting my CT to Jhb flight and continuing on the connecting Jhb to Dar es Salaam flight as per normal. </p> <p>The response to that was that if I forfeited the CT to Jhb flight, I would not be allowed on the connecting flight at all, unless I paid a fine of 130usd, NEVER MIND the money I already lose for forfeiting the flight and not costing them a cent to get myself to Jhb and onto my second flight.</p> <p>On my forth call the the call Centre I kindly requested canceling all requests to make changes to my flight and just bought a ticket to fly back from Bloemfontein to CT with Mango Airlines to just take the damn flight from CT, leaving my family during the worst possible time. Flying back all the way, cost me only R989, which is half of the amount SAA wanted to fine me for forfeiting my first flight.</p> <p>I am so disgusted in the mentality of this airline, to not take into consideration the fact that sometimes life gets in the way and changes are necessary. Instead, they want to take your money for the most ridiculous reasons, despite my best efforts and compliance to make it as simple as possible for the airline and avoiding unnecessary fines.</p> <p>I will NEVER fly with South African Airways ever again and I will ensure that everyone I reach gets to hear how useless they are.</p> <p>Yours truly <br />Refnr. 56I5O4</p> <p> </p>