S.A.A. does it again.
 

Friends of us booked tickets on S.A.A. from Australia in April, to be in South Africa for Christmas. Only to get bumped of the flight!

The explanation - flight overbooked!! You would think 8 months in advance would secure you a seat over the festive season.

Is SAA the only airline in the world to do this? Still pretty crap though.

This happens a lot on SAA , how do they get away with this

The same way every other airline gets away with it.

Divine hover.
All airlines keep records of the no shows on flights and then overbook based on those statistics. The holiday season have the lowest level of no shows.

The problem in this case was once again the treatment of these passengers. Only after it made headline news ( yes front page ) in South Africa and Australia did S.A.A. swing into action to save face.


Roll on the World Cup!!

There is a bigger ops issue here! SAA have scheduled the A340-600 most days between Perth and Joburg. However, SAA have recently had an A340-600 stuck at Heathrow for a few days since the air bridge operator banged the bridge against the door. That required some equipment substitutions and we saw the smaller A340-200 to Perth on some days instead. This was also compounded by recent weather issues in Europe which had knock-on effects on the rest of the network.

At this time of year all airlines work on the edge capacity wise and really if the British Airports Authority had not banged up an SAA A340 there wouldn't have been a problem. However, SAA could have communicated this better to passengers in Perth.

All airlines bump passengers, they all use similar policies for choosing passengers and compensation which is driven by local regulations. If its in a country where compensation is not offered then passengers with no frequent flyer status or those on highly discounted tickets are bumped first, or those who are last to check in.

Ah yes big World Cup scare. How will we cope. An aircraft with 120 seats and 120 pax. Terrifying

Divine,
It's not the World Cup Scare, it's the World Cup Embarrassment. Just like the S.A.A. Perth embarrassment.

It's about service levels. Everyone think that when the tourist arrive we will give them that big welcome smile, and they will leave 10% plus tips. Sorry guys but most of these tourists will find the TIA ( "Tough in Africa" or "This is Africa" or what ever you want to call it) funny initially, but eventually they would like to see some real service.

So back to S.A.A. bumping pax. Yes there was a change of equipment on the route, this happen, but how it played out is the problem. S.A.A. had at least 24 hours to be pro active. They only got re active after it was all over the newspapers.

If you claim to be one of the big dogs then compete and act like one of the big dogs.

I forgot to mention that a travel agent told me the best thing to do is to call 24hrs before and reserve your seat otherswise this could happen

This gives a false sense of security but has absolutely no bearing on the offload status of a particular passenger, which is based on the various criteria which cumulatively determine that passenger's value to the airline.

Let me put a spin on this, this happened in Aussie, pax being assisted by, most probably an Aussie handling company and/or Aussie staff………..Springboks…Aussies…..get my drift………….:E

Well, if SAA is like any "big dog" major airline, then they sould have no aircraft standing around especially with weather delays and an “accident” causing havoc to your schedules. I’m sure as per standard practice…..I presume the pax were given hotel accommodation, some pax might have been transferred to the QF flight and the process of re-routing pax started for the pax that wished to re-route……….as well as the normal “denied boarding” compensation………..

E

I have always wondered if IATA keep some statistics of which airlines are most prone to bump passengers?

Also, most bumped passengers get rerouted. In this case, rerouting would be difficult, and it would probably be quicker to wait until the next flight. A reroute via Sydney would have required a flight on the following day (assuming there was one since Qantas don't fly Sydney-Joburg daily). Other reroutes could include Hong Kong and Singapore, but given the time SA281 leaves Perth (23:45) that would also mean waiting until the next day!

SAA is represented by a local Australian ground handling company. However, the instructions regarding who to bump, how to do it, and what arrangements to make come from Operations in Johannesburg.

You ever flown KQ? SAA is not alone in this, wait till you land with a 2 year old in NRB and have a confirmend tix and they say, sorry, we are over booked (as a connecting pax!!!!!!!), but dont stress, we have a 2 star hotel waiting for you and water is at your expense. 10 HRS later you get to the hotel and your child has chewed a hole in your arm and then the shuttle forgets you for your connection the next day, your bags are missing, your arm is bleeding and your plane (the one you are paid to fly) is standing on the apron with no one to fly her and your boss has lost her sense of humor, so has the owner of the plane.The best is getting onto their fu$ked old 73 and seeing "the pride of Africa" boldly scrawled onto the side of the old girl! All in all a good trip, got to do some sight seeing. WTF TIA

Dog

BetaLightWhat news paper? Not in the citizen. If web based do you have a link. BTW many airlines at JNB turn pax away due 'weight restrictions', 'overbooked', 'aircraft switch' etc without any hotel etc.

Sounds like small town syndrome