Again???
I don't think the problem has been fixed at all.
A mate was on a flight to MRU on Friday morning (08 June) that experienced a problem and turned back to JNB. After working on it for a while the crew decided to get off, and were replaced by a full new crew (FD and Cabin).
The new crew then called for new catering as the first crew had already heated the meals on the first attempt. Once catering was on they gave it a second go but decided at the start of the take off run that it was not fixed and returned to the bay again.
At this point the Cabin Crew decided to get off but the FD guys stayed on. Captain was seen remonstrating with the Purser on the apron, who promptly turned her back on him and waved him off. I hasten to add that this is the assumption that my mate got and is not something I know factually.
Anyway, 3rd set of Cabin Crew got on and flight departed around 6 or 7 hours late. Surely if the FD can stay on then the Cabin crew can stay as well. I would have thought, and understand from previous posts in this thread, that the Captain would have made this decision.
They had a terminal cancer patient on board who went into a relapse of sort and had to be treated by paramedics on the apron during the delay. Thankfully he recovered and was able to travel to his kid's wedding.
Unfortunately for SAA, there were around 100 travel people on board, including Executive directors of one of the biggest travel agancy groups in SA, a number of owners of travel agents and top performing agents for SAA.
Credit must go to the Captain who evidently handled the entire situation brilliantly.
Not sure if anyone has the facts from an SAA perspective.