The SAA Airbus A340 seats are the worst. I see that the manufacturer of those seats is Recaro. I hope Recaro don't go into the seat business because they know nothing about the human body, and they make really bad seats. I wonder if anyone from SAA ever sat in the seats before they brought them, or did Recaro just offer the biggest ahem commission discount bonus ex-gratia brown paper bag. And recouped the cost by leaving out the ergonomics from design of the seat. At least they got the bit right about the seats needing to cater for all sizes of passenger. The seats are very uncomfortable for all people from 5'6" to 6'6"
If there was truly justice in this world, SAA management should be condemned to fly in their own aircraft and sit in their own seats. There, that is REAL punishment. And the thing is that they will get punished whether they sit in business class in the A340-200 or in economy in any of the A340s. They are all Recaro seats (excepting the business sleeper seat in the A340-600 is pretty good).