flight deals
South African Airways complaint
18 January 2007 - (well that's the date today, but I emailed this on the 15th January)
Dear Sir/Ma'am
I fly mainly SAA, but also have the odd flights on British Airways, Mango, Kulula and 1-time. Looking at flights purely on a cost-basis, it makes sense to fly the low-cost airlines. However, SAA has the advantages of more spacious seating, generally shorter queues to check in (for silver class and up) and the occasional bump-up to business class.
It was with this, as well as the memories of my recent flight SA363 (27 December 2006) to Cape Town, that I thought I'd provide you with some tips for improvement:
- the queue for business class check-in was longer than the queue for economy class check-in. Although unsatisfactory, I understand that this may happen from time to time. On getting to the front of the queue, your check-in attendant - Alexa du Toit - was having an animated discussion with her colleague to her right, about when her shift ends. Clearly the queue will run through more efficiently if these types of operational issues don't have to be sorted out on the fly.
I was seated at seat 15D, a seat in front of the emergency exit. The seat could not go back, but the seat in front of me at 14D could go back...and when it went back I barely had enough space to type on my laptop....in fact it was pretty much as cramped up as when going on a flight on Mango, Kulula and 1-time. My (pregnant) wife was next to me facing the same absurdities of your aircraft design. You have 3 (reasonable) options - (1) build a bit more space into the plane so that the seats in front of the emergency exits can go back, whilst still leaving enough space for the emergency exits; (2) ensure that all seats cannot go back; (3) charge a reduced fee for the seat in front of the emergency row exit, reflecting the lower utility of the less space that is available. SAA's current methodology of charging the same fee for a seat with significantly less space is unsatisfactory.
I brought up the seating issue with your flight attendant, Zukisa Gclitshana. Zukisa's first bit of advice was that I should lodge a complaint with customercare - why must I repeat my advice to customer care (SAA should rather empower its staff to be able to suggest improvements)? Zukisa's second suggestion was that if I want to be comfortable I should book business class next time. I don't find Zukisa's second comment helpful either - I have paid extra to fly SAA in exchange for extra comfort, if I wasn't going to get that extra comfort I would have paid less and flown a low-cost airline.
Regards,
(I give you permission to print this in Sawubona provided it is not edited in any way)