SAA client ‘fat-shamed’ over seatbelt
AN SAA passenger has told of how she was subjected to extreme fatshaming when the plane she had boarded had to “return to ramp” because it could not supply “obese” people with seatbelt extensions.
Karabo Seitei asked for, but did not get, an extension — and instead of an apology from the SAA crew, she was subjected to a humiliating public announcement explaining that a lack of extensions for overweight passengers had delayed departure, which prompted several passengers to laugh.
To add insult to injury, when the extension arrived, the steward made a show of fixing the extension onto Seitei’s seatbelt.
When she e-mailed a complaint about the humiliating experience the next day, she received an acknowledgement but the complaint was thereafter ignored.
It is a Civil Aviation Authority requirement that every passenger be secured for takeoff and landing.
Seitei, who lives in Pretoria and works as an English moderator for the Department of Education, is a fre-
quent SAA flyer.
When she boarded SA326 in Cape Town on August 26 last year, she asked the cabin controller for a seatbelt extension and was told one would be brought to her. When the plane started taxiing, she made the request to the flight attendant again.
“She said they didn’t have an extension for me, and after I pointed out the safety issue, the plane turned back.”
The passengers were left for more than 30 minutes until the attendant brought a bright orange extension and fastened it around Seitei, who was sitting at the back of the plane.
“It was really bad,” said Seitei’s colleague, Sophia Brown, who was seated next to her.
“It was traumatic enough for everyone on the plane to see who needed the extension, but for the attendant to attach it for her as if she was a child, instead of handing it to her, was too awful.
“I just looked at her in horror but said nothing — I didn’t want to make it worse.” But worse was to come. As Seitei told SAA in an e-mail to its customer service division a day after her ordeal: “An announcement was then made that went something like this: ‘We are dealing with some obese cases on board and therefore had to go back to find extension belts; we don’t usually need them on this flight out of Cape Town. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.’
“Some passengers reacted by making remarks and laughing,” Seitei said.
“I wished that the earth would swallow me.
“The inconvenience caused by the delay to all passengers on board that plane and the humiliation and embarrassment to me and the fellow ‘obese’ passengers was immense,” she said.
A few days later she received an acknowledgement of her email with a reference number and the name of the person to whom her “inquiry” had been assigned.
That was the last she heard from “customer care”, despite sending a follow-up e-mail in January.
On Thursday May 11, a week after the Sunday Times took up the case with SAA, the airline’s “customer service recovery team” e-mailed Seitei apologising for “the break in service” on her flight. She was offered 3 000 bonus miles “as a gesture of good care”.
SAA’s head of media relations, Tlali Tlali, said SAA’s policy was to have two seatbelt extensions on board narrowbodied aircraft such as the Airbus in question, and five on wide-bodied aircraft.
He said the two extensions on board were given to other passengers, but “there was an oversight” on the crew’s part with respect to Seitei’s request.
He said staff should have made arrangements to obtain an extension for Seitei before the aircraft doors were closed.
SAA had been unable to establish “the nature of the announcement made” as in-flight announcements were only stored for two hours, he said.
“We empathise with the passenger and are in direct liaison with her about the incident,” he said, in reference to the e-mail Seitei was sent.