Flight experience
Good morning
As a Voyager member, I am deeply saddened and distressed by my experience with your airline and the interaction of and with your staff over the weekend of 29-31 May 2009. I was travelling in a party of 5, 2 others of whom are Voyager members as well, 1 a premium card holder of the South African Airways Voyager credit card and I speak on behalf of the sentiment held by all members of our party.
The booking I refer to in this letter was reserved via an internet booking, reference number 3AF063 , departing from Johannesburg on Friday, 29th May 2009, on flight SA 313 to Cape Town and returning on Sunday, 31st May 2009. My party and I missed our return flight and thus booked a new flight at the Cape Town International Airport to return to Johannesburg on Sunday night.
I would like to bring to your attention the following incidences, as detailed below. With regard to flight SA 313:
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8am on Friday morning, our boarding pass detailing the boarding time as 7:30am. By 7:55am the gate had not even opened for boarding- this for a flight due to leave at 8am. People waited in the queue to board the plane, with no indication of the reason for the delay or even the fact that the flight had been delayed at all. Not only were there no announcements informing the passengers to not rush to the gate for boarding but the SAA staff waited at the boarding desk chatting to each other, sitting on the counter, with their backs to the passengers- ignoring the passengers standing there for over 30 minutes.
We finally boarded the flight and departed 15 minutes later than the scheduled departure time. At the time of having our meals served, we were not catered for in terms of special meals as we had booked our tickets through Travelstart.co.za and could not specify meals on their booking site. Thus, having been given a tray with a roll, yoghurt and juice, one of the ladies in our party, asked for the flavour of her yoghurt to be changed to her preference. The air hostess, Zinta Brits, rudely and abruptly replied that there weren’t any yoghurts. I was surprised not only by her tone but at her very answer. Some of the people on the plane had not even been served their breakfast (naturally, I assume that SAA caters for all its passengers). In fact we could see the yoghurts on her trolley! We indicated our shock to the hostess, who then said she would see if there were extra. She failed to understand that we were not asking for another but just for a simple swap, which could have been done immediately. A few minutes later, she returned and smacked another yoghurt onto the tray without another word and turned around and walked away. She was rude and her actions were unprofessional and insulting.
After having missed our flight, as stated above, 1 of our party was then booked on SA 372, to leave at 8:00pm and the other 4 on flight SA 374, to leave at 9:00. We booked our tickets at the Reservations desk at Cape Town International Airport at approximately 5:30pm. Our experience with SAA staff in Cape Town was not any better than the ground and flight crew of our flight from Johannesburg.
With regard to flight SA 372/ 4:
After having booked our flights, I asked the reservations clerk, Crystal (I didn’t get her surname), if we could proceed to check-in as our wait at the airport would be long (we booked the flights at 5:30pm and our flights were to depart 2-3 hours later). She assured us that it would be fine and we should go to the check-in desk to check-in for both flights. We were attended to by Colin (his Team Leader did not know his surname). I handed the tickets to him, along with all the ID documents, and he then asked for the credit card with which the booking was paid for. He swiped it and plainly declared “This card doesn’t swipe”. I asked him what he meant by that (something wrong with the card or the booking??) and he held the card up to me, slowly saying “this card does not swipe” as if I did not hear him the first time. I irritably told him that I had made the booking at SAA reservations desk and have now walked to him to check-in, so the card must swipe because I had just bought and paid for the tickets with that card. He then went on to again say “well, the card doesn’t swipe so you must go sort it out”. I was shocked at his manner and response to a problem which obviously lay with SAA and not me or my credit card. I then said to him to not speak to me in that manner and that if there is a problem, he should go and sort it out, or if he cannot sort it out then get someone else in his team to help because surely after having PAID for a ticket, I needn’t be shoved from pillar to post. He then pushed his chair back and threw up his hands saying that if I tell him what to do and speak to him in that way, he will simply just not serve me. At this time, I asked him to call for his manager and he refused to help me.
The check-in clerk next to him then quickly intervened and asked for the credit card and tickets; and she then checked it on her computer. The reservation then partly came up (some of the party’s names were there and others not). There was also a problem in which the name and surname on their system did not match what was one the ticket. I explained to her that although it could be, the problem is not with me or my card and that they should sort it out as the names printed on the ticket were correct as per our identity documents. She said to me and 2 others of my party (who were standing there all the while) that what Colin meant to say was perhaps the credit card was not swiping because I had paid with a different one, or that the tickets had not been registered or the system was not picking up my payment. I said to her that to all of those things I have responded, and if that was the case, surely he could have explained himself better. She then said the reason he told me to sort it out was because that was not the way SAA worked (i.e.. for the check-in clerks to then find out why my booking was not registering on SAA’s system). I then asked her if by that she meant (or SAA meant) that I, as a passenger, should go back to reservations to tell them that check-in could not proceed with my booking because something is wrong with SAA’s system so I am there to rectify it??
She then accompanied me to reservations to sort it out; after I told her that was the least she could do since it is obvious that the problem laid with SAA. We went back to Crystal and she attempted to explain the error to her. Crystal double-checked that the tickets were printed correctly and the credit card payment was successful; and that everything was correct and it showed on her computer so it should show at check-in. She told the check-in clerk to try again and if that fails she should “zero-in” on the system and try again. The clerk could say nothing more, it was rather obvious that there was no problem with the tickets or the payment- and we then all proceeded back to the check-in counter. By this time, as you can imagine, I was frustrated, offended and tired of SAA and its staff.
We went back to check-in and the lady who was now helping us went to another check-in clerk to explain what was going on. He then said to not worry, took over the check-in, assuring us he would help and sort it out. He apologised to me and went on with the check-in which took a further 20 minutes. By this time, I insisted on seeing a manager. Moegsien Abrahams then came and I explained the entire ordeal to him, and he apologised profusely and said he would try to compensate me for all the inconvenience. Colin now was listening in and then started up a loud conversation with the lady clerk who attempted to help, complaining to her about me since I was now talking to the manager. I pointed this out to Moegsien Abrahams, yet again highlighting the unprofessional manner in which SAA staff conducted themselves.
The clerk who was now processing our check-in, then said to compensate me as per Mr.Abrahams’s words, he would put us all on the same flight (since we got 1 ticket on the earlier flight). He printed our boarding passes and I noticed that he had put us all on the later flight. My assumption was that he would put us all on the earlier flight, since it was not compensation at all to move the one other passenger to the later flight as that flight was not full and we could have just booked the ticket that way had we wanted to. We actually paid more for the ticket on the earlier flight, by the way. So I made him then change that one ticket back to the earlier flight- which left us with tickets as originally booked at the reservations desk earlier that day. There was no compensation, just a sorry from the manager.
To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. My entire family and I are Voyager members and we have always flown SAA because of the rewards, not the service! Despite this, the entire ordeal has left me considering never to fly SAA again. Whilst this may not be of great concern to you (as I assume it is not since SAA has a history of not responding to complaints or queries), I feel it incumbent upon me to bring this to your attention since your vision reads
“to deliver sustainable profits and to grow our market share through world-class service to our customers internally and externally”
Not only is the service from SAA terrible but the staff are rude, unhelpful and seemingly have little or no training is customer service. This vision is merely a trophy statement as not one of SAA’s corporate values are practised upon, so SAA’s vision will never be a reality. 3 of SAA’s corporate values are Customer Focus, Accountability and Integrity – not one of which were practised upon during our encounters with SAA. Systems need to be in place to facilitate operational procedures for SAA which ease communication and provide commendable service to customers. It seemed to me that SAA staff were not familiar with procedures or systems when encountering a problem- they had no idea how to handle it- or themselves, they did not know how to resolve the query and they had no company or system knowledge further than their role.
Does SAA realise that there is an entire website dedicated to the bad experiences of its customers? SAAsucks.com- need I say more???? Surely, SAA has more pride than this!
I trust that this letter is met with the necessary attention it warrants; I have also cc’d this email to the rest of my party. Failure to provide adequate feedback to us would once again be a blatant disregard by SAA for the mission, vision and values it purports to operate within. I hope that this is not the case.
Kind regards,
Mahdiyya Khan
Tags: Complaints, SAA
