South African AirwaysReviews of flysaa.com

Discrimination based airline and corrupt management proudly brough to you by the ANC government. Should’ve been closed down long time ago

It's been 65 days since asking for a refund .Emergency surgery I have sent at least 5 emails All I get back It's landed (it flew) My insurance company won't do anything until I get a reply . Won't fly SAA .

I needed to change my flights and due to a system error, the new tickets came up with a wrong date. We had to call in and pay again as the new change was done via their office. Since then, July 2026, it’s been a nightmare trying to get the first change fee. I’ve called countless times, gone to their offices, emailed and got assigned a case officer, made a refund request- NOTHING. There’s barely a response and I have no idea when I will get my money back.

I flew from Cape Town to JHB… the flight was delayed by 2 hours whilst we were sitting on the plane… no real apologies or attempt to reimburse us… additionally the pilot missed their landing and that added an additional 20 mins to the flight (I mean what professional pilot does that?!?!) Then on top of this - my return is today and we are already 40 minutes delayed… this is beyond… I understand if it happens once but not twice in a row… Do not suggest, poor poor stuff…

Worst experience ever. My daughter needed to travel with a musical instrument on board the flight, so this ticket could not be purchased online. The call centre is totally incompetent, unprofessional, and absolutely useless. A simple flight ticket took me almost a week to buy. They made so many errors. When they sent me the payment link, they forgot to add the R100 service fee, so they insisted that i had not paid, only to find out that the service fee of R100 was not included. Every time you call in, you need to speak to a different person and explain yourself all over again. No continuity, no notes written if I called earlier. Nothing is recorded. The incompetence is on another level. Do not use the call centre. You wasting your time!

Appalling, hostile customer "service" from every SAA representative we spoke to at O R Tambo, including the supervisor our issue was escalated to. We missed a flight connection due to the disastrous passport and security queues inside the transit area. Every legal source I have consulted indicates that, because this was sold as a single ticket on the same booking reference, SAA should have rebooked me onto the next flight for free, but they made us exit the transit area (another hour in passport control in the reverse direction!) and then pay a whopping fee to get the next flight, which was the following day, so we also had to pay for a grossly overpriced hotel. I could almost forgive this if even one member of staff had shown basic levels of courtesy or showed that their business class customers were in any way valued, but in fact they were united in their hostility and outright refusal to assist in any way. Unfortunately I imagine SAA will not be bothered about the many negative reviews as they simply do not care. We will be voting with our feet and avoiding them for the rest of our lives. By far and away the worst airline I have ever used.

I cancelled my flight on 31 March 2026 to fly out on 7 April and the South African Airways refund team send me an acknowledgment email also advising that they will process my refund in 60 days but I am still chasing the refund today 22 July 2026. I went to South Africa early this July on another carrier and asked face to face at the airport to get my refund back but I was passed on from one person to the other since night time I arrived to the following morning and later that following morning was given a piece of paper with typed phone numbers and asked to call. (i will be uploading acknowledgement emails and the paper with phone numbers here soon). I have called this refund phone number several times and am being told that it is a wrong number/department as i end up in the it section not refund section. I keep being passed on from on person to the other. I HAVE COMPLETED THE ONLINE REFUND FORM SEVERAL TIMES AND STILL THEY ARE YET TO GIVE ME MY REFUND BACK. I WILL FOLLOW THIS UP UNTIL I GET MY MONEY BACK.

I have not travelled with SAA for many years and recently took a return flight to Sao Paulo. Overall the service was poor compared to the many other carriers I have used. The planes are very obviously old e.g no USB charging points. Staff are unfriendly on entering the plane and the food inedible. To top it all my luggage did not arrive on my return home. I found the person dealing with lost luggage friendly but unprofessional. Several of us with lost luggage were crowded into a back office / store room at ORT and asked to give personal information in front of all other passengers. Clueless. I won't be flying SAA again if I can avoid it. On landing ar ORT one notices a large fleet of new SAfair planes on the apron with not a single SAA plane in sight. That says it all.