South African Airways

Washington DC to Johannesburg. Airbus A340-300. Great plane I found the seat width better than on the A340-600. Sat at the Bulkhead row 35. Great legroom. Ground staff were friendly. Excellent cabin crew. Took off 10 minutes early and arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule. Very smooth flight. Stop at Dakar was only 50 minutes instead of the scheduled 90 minutes - 2 hours. We were a National team tour group of 105 people and not a single piece of luggage went missing or was damaged.

Cape Town to Johannesburg. 6 July 2012. Airbus A340-600. Great plane and pilots. Sat at the emergency exits row "45". Excellent legroom (I am 2 meters tall). Took off on time and arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Baggage was checked all the way to our New York connecting flight. Ground staff were pleasantly helpful. Cabin crew nice and friendly. Good on board service.

Johannesburg to Cape Town. Good flight on time all good until we arrived. Waited at luggage carousel until no more bags and then visit lost luggage counter. It turns out the pilot ordered 50 bags to be left because of bad weather. Presumably to avoid lodging more fuel since it was only a 2 hour flight on a 737. SAA could have told us when we arrived and not gone through the lost baggage charade. The one guy left to deal with 50 angry people did a fantastic job and bags were delivered next day as promised.

Flew back MUN-JHNB SA265. Full flight. Whole in-flight system was in-operative as well as the seats. Meals was good and service is friendly. Was able to sleep on the flat-bed as the seats can be operated manually but it was a struggle and noisy for the staff to set up. I think the staff service was good in the challenging circumstances but thought poorly of the equipment of the aircraft not being in working order. Despite the apologies from the staff on board I think an apology from head-office is required.

Johannesburg to New York JFK direct flight. Airbus A340-600. Great plane and pilots. Seats not bad at all I sat at the row 45 emergency exit. Check in went quickly since we had already got our boarding passes with our connecting domestic flight check in. Ground staff were friendly. After take off we were served drinks then a nice dinner. Between dinner and breakfast the cabin crew offered refreshments at least 5 times. They stopped at nothing to rectify the few personal entertainment systems that was out of order even moving passengers to other seats. Smooth flight took off on time and arrived 45 minutes early.

Johannesburg to Cape town. Boeing 737-800. Very helpful and friendly ground staff. Great pilots and friendly cabin crew. Seats a tad narrow and legroom not great for tall people I'm 2 meters tall and they moved me to an emergency exit row where the legroom was much better. Took off 10 minutes early and arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

Our flight from JFK to JNB was delayed 9 hours due to mechanical problems costing us an entire day in Cape Town. Neither my wife or I had a functional entertainment unit for the 14 hour flight. Our connecting flight from JNB to Hoedspruit (near Kruger) was delayed by 4 hours due to another mechanical failure costing us an entire game drive on Safari. After emailing SAA regarding these issues they offered to provide a small discount on future purchases from their dysfunctional airline. While staff were polite in person they regularly demonstrated no awareness of the reasoning or status of long delay issues. I will never fly SAA again. British Airways is certainly worth the very slight difference in cost.

We have always travelled with SAA between LHR and JHB on our visits to family. Our last trip was different the crew were so much more pleasant this time. In the past one or two looked as if it was a chore to deal with us. This time there was always a smile and cheery banter. Our only complaint was that in both directions we had problems with the IFE no sound or it sounded as if it was under water. Despite re-booting we never did get it right. We've rebooked our next flight already and look forward to it.

JFK-JNB May 20th. I have always enjoyed flying SAA. I have found the staff to be very friendly and helpful. This trip was no different. Entertainment food and drinks were good. I have always had a hard time sleeping on the plane so I will often go and chat with the crew in the galley while stretching. They have always been so friendly and easy to chat with. The only unpleasant part of this last trip was that I was sitting next to a rather large woman who was not very polite. She raised the arm rest between us and came spilling on to me. Not very pleasant on a 15 hour flight. I still tried to be nice though and make some small talk. I will be flying with SAA again on Sunday July 1st and look forward to their hospitality.

Flight: In last month. First we had a very hectic check in and boarding - though we reached the airport 2 hrs before our flight we had nearly missed our flight because of the slowness in immigration procedures! But I would like to thank to staff at the boarding gate A24 who allowed us in though boarding was closed. Was expecting a wonderful flight in the business class cabin from Johannesburg to Mauritius but both me and my husband were disappointed. The hostess seemed to be forcing herself to smile at us and we had to wait a long time before being served! Moreover the vegetarian food was of extremely low quality. Nevertheless my husband has travelled economy in domestic SA flights and he was happy with the service. It all depends on the crew.