British Airways versus SAA

This document reflects our views as to why British Airways (BA) has the edge over South African Airways (SAA). There's no one revolutionary idea which British Airways have had which South African Airways haven't, rather it's the accumulated weight of smaller things which British Airways implements in a more polished manner.

	South African Airways	British Airways
Check-in queues	For silver and gold class there is usually a short wait. Immediate check-ins are rare. Sometimes there is a long wait, with SAA staff faffing about.	Check-in is generally shorter than for SAA, but on our BA flight from Durban to Cape Town there was a long check-in queue.
Aircraft architecture	Seats in front of some emergency exits and in the last row of the plane don't fold back, while seats in front of them do fold back.	Seats in front of the emergency exit and in the last row DO fold back.
Meals	Ordered Asian vegetarian and got a roll with cheese & cucumber on it. Unless you're on diet or a small eater, South African Airways food isn't enough for you not to go hungry over lunch. SAA no longer serve tomato cocktail. Child's meals a a bit of a disappointment - roll with chicken, cucumber & lettuce on it.	Vegeterian meals are often served as standard, and are far tastier than SAA vegeterian meals. BA could improve their vegeterian meals by including legumes in them. British Airways kiddies meals are better than SAA's - BA provided 2 small rolls, crisps, dried fruit, chocolate and a fruit juice, whereas South African Airways provided one large roll, same as the adults get, which is harder for the little ones to handle.
Family friendliness	SAA make no attempt at placing babies, daddies & mommies together. They need to be asked, and then still get it wrong.	All times we've flown with them, British Airways have placed the 3 of us together. On one occassion our baby started crying, and the BA Air Hostess brought her some baby playing cards to cheer her up. On a flight from Vilankulo they started playing peekaboo with our son, when he got upset.
Flight booking system	Recently SAA have improved their systems making it easier to find cheap flight prices.	Shows an array of flight prices over different dates, making it easy to find the cheapest flights (although they don't have the best flight booking system in the industry).
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Noise levels	Haven't noticed undue noise levels.	Very loud noise levels experienced when sitting in the row just behind the wing on a BA Durban to Cape Town flight.