Worst flight ever - JFK - ORT

My mother and I flew SAA from New York JFK to Johannesburg ORT on the 6th October 2018. We had so many issues on this return flight.

Firstly, online check in was not available via mobile so when we finally got to a computer to check in, we couldn't get seats next to each other. We were booked in seats 70H & 72K. When we boarded the plane, I asked the woman sitting in 70K to please swap seats with me so I could sit with my mum. She politely agreed.

When the flight took off, we were disturbed the entire 15 hours by 4 very immature kids sitting in the 4 aisle seats next to us. They disrupted all the people around them for the entire flight. What made it worse was the speakers on BOTH 70H and 70K were not working for for 15 HOURS, my mum and I had nothing to do. We couldn't watch any movies or drown out the noise of the kids. We paid a lot of money to fly SAA and not having in flight entertainment for this long of a flight is unacceptable. The air hosts said that we would be refunded for this. The air hosts tried resetting the machine over and over but the speaker pockets were the issue and no sound travelled through them.

Next, the plane was so poorly ventilated. I travel 3-4 times a year and this is the first flight I've been on where I didn't use the blanket and I suffered to breath the entire flight. I've also been ill for a full week since the flight. I've been recovering from getting sick on the flight till today.

My next complaint is with the food. I've never had such awful food on a flight before. When I checked in, there was no option to choose a meal. The choices on the flight were seriously limited for vegetarians and the food that was served was so disgusting that we didn't eat for 15 HOURS!!!! How can you serve sandwiches with just roasted peppers inside it? The sandwiches were soggy and completely disgusting. There were also 2 very awful dinner choices and even worse options for breakfast. Aside from the awful sandwich, no decent snacks were available during the flight. The catering is the worst I have ever come across from any airline.

My poor mother is 63 years old and diabetic and she really struggled on this flight. She had no food, no entertainment and could not sleep due to the rowdy kids.

Then to top all this off, my one bag was broken by the airline.

A few years ago, my brother's wife and his kids had a traumatic experience with SAA and our entire family boycotted SAA for years. We decided to try it again but all I can say is that this experience just proved what a **** airline SAA is.

SAA needs to sort itself out. They cannot do this to passengers that spend a fortune to travel with them