South African Airlines - SAA > Reviews > An airline very much let down by it's staff

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality	Satisfactory
Customer Service	Very unhelpful
Punctuality	Poor
Space	Fairly Comfortable
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Direct  daily Services between London and Cape Town/ Jo'Burg
Disadvantages:	rude staff

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I flew South African Airways in June/July last year.
I flew from London to Cape Town, travelled overland from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, then picked up a flight from Port Elizabeth to Jo'burg with an onwards connection back to London.

The main reason I chose the airline was that it is one of the few airlines offering direct services between London and Cape Town and London and Johannesburg.
The second reason was that they are part of the Star Alliance and I was able to accrue points on my frequent flyer programme (Miles and More)

South African Airways operate out of Heathrow's Terminal 1 and check- in was very fast and efficient. As usual with Heathrow there were long queues going through Security but once through you'll find the usual array of Duty free shops.

Depending on the aircraft operating, SAA offer a three-class service First Class, Business Calls & Economy.
Business & First Class offer a fully flat bed, but unfortunately I was not lucky enough to experience this as I was back in Economy.
On the plus side, South African Airways operate video on demand in Economy on all major international routes and luckily for me the London route was one of them. Video on demand means that you can start & stop any video/audio program whenever you like.

I flew out to South Africa in June and flew back in July and had checked out on the website the films I wanted to watch on each of the 12hours legs (unfortunately I am unable to sleep on an aircraft). However on the return, even though we were in July the films shown were still June, when I queried this with the Cabin Crew I was told " It's only the second of July - what are you complaining about?" This kind of abrupt attitude was a typical example of the way Cabin Crew interacted with passengers as I found out later on in the flight.
After the meal services, I asked for a soft drink and the reply of the flight attendant was " If I get round to it". Unfortunately she never did, which on a 12hours journey is not ideal.

One of the guys in our group was sat away from the rest of us and when it came to the meal service he neither received the customary bread rolls that everyone else had nor was he offered any drink other than water.
The flight was also delayed on the return, but no explanation was offered by the airline at any stage as to the reason's why.

Whilst the 12hours journey should have been a pleasant one, the airline was very much let down by the unfriendliness of the cabin crew which is something that will make me think twice about using them again.

I also would recommend anyone departing from Jo'burg (regardless of airline flown) to allow plenty of time to go through immigration, as this was an extremely chaotic and lengthy process, which tool in excess of 2hours.