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| Title of Complaint | OverBooking |
| Date of Complaint | 01 May 2007 |
| Company | SAA |
| Complaint | I am totally disappointed in SAA’s service we received on Friday en route to East London.
We were booked on a flight to East London from Oliver Tambo (27/04/07) at 6am, SA459. We arrived at the airport at 4:45 because of the parking, and waited in the long waiting line and they only started calling the East London people at around 5:45am and when we got to the counter the woman said the plane was full and it was due to us being late that we have lost our seats. I object to someone assuming that we were late, especially as it later came out that it is standard practice that the flights are overbooked. (On the 25/04/07 I flew to Bloemfontein on a 6:10am flight and was standing in the line at 4:45am only to wait until after 5am before someone arrived at the check-in counters! This is double standards) When I then asked to be refunded I was told that I would lose 25% of the value for a refund! The ‘best’ they could do is book us on a flight at 10:35am, 4.5 hours after our scheduled flight. We then were told that it is standard procedure to overbook flights. Therefore we were now not late, but rather SAA’s fault due to the overbooking! Why we should therefore lose 25% of the fee on cancellation is beyond my reasoning. The attitude of the staff was disgusting, because firstly they tried to blame us for being ‘late’ and then after telling us about the over booking issue they then had an attitude of ‘take it or leave it’ because they knew they had us in a corner with the 25% cancellation feel’. I insisted on speaking to a supervisor who subsequently called the person he reports to, and everybody had a pathetic attitude towards us. It is rather annoying to read about SAA’s financial losses and at the same time the millions of Rands of bonuses being paid, but then this happens to the customer a day after reading the article in the paper. The vision statement says ‘customer first’. It is rather a case of ‘customer last’. We were supposed to meet someone in Port Alfred at 9am on the Friday, and only arrived in Port Alfred at 13h30, too late for the person to see us. What if someone was meeting us in East London to pick us up? Do they not realise they are messing others as well with these practises? And these ‘others’ could be potential SAA customers. To compound the problem the screen started to flash that the plane was boarding at around 9:55 at gate D5 – we moved towards the gate only to find nobody – the person arrived at 10:25!! The flight was supposed to leave at 10:35! We already knew then that the plane would be delayed and we only took off at around 11:00 – further delays! I find this as unacceptable and bad business practice. I have lost total confidence in SAA’s ability. SAA has become totally unreliable, I noticed this not only on the East London flight but also the flight to Bloemfontein two days earlier as I was supposed to be at an appointment at 7:30am but only arrived at 8:15am. It’s a poor showing! How would anybody at SAA feel if they were in my position? |
| Response on behalf of SAA | Awaiting a Response |
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