Affected passengers will be helped
South African Airways (SAA) said yesterday they would be assisting passengers who could not travel to their destinations due to the cabin crew strike at no extra cost.
SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said in a statement: “We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers as a result of the service disruptions... we are assisting all passengers who could not travel due to the strike action to ensure they reach their intended destination as soon as possible.”
The airline urged all passengers with tickets who were inconvenienced by the cabin crew strike on Wednesday to receive assistance with rebooking via any SAA Call Centre, City Travel Office or dedicated Travel Agent on condition that the passenger would be rebooking on to another South African Airways flight for a later date at no extra charge and subject to availability of the same booking class.
Change of cabin would not be permitted and tickets had to be reissued on or before May 2, 2017.
On Wednesday, about 200 flight attendants gathered outside the SAA head office in Kempton Park in protest against low international meal allowances, causing a number of flights to be delayed and some cancelled.
SAA confirmed that flights were cancelled for the entire day on Wednesday, while the largest impact was on the domestic segment of its route network. Only one outbound international flight was cancelled.
“Our planned flight schedules have resumed and while operations are geared to full service recovery, we remain exposed to minimal operational delays,” Tlali said yesterday.
“Since the court order was granted, SAA has seen a significant increase in several cabin crew members reporting for duty and this has enabled the airline to operate all its scheduled flights for today.”
The airline said its recovery plans were being implemented to assist all passengers with their travel across the entire route network and ticketed passengers whose flights were cancelled yesterday would be supported to travel today.
“We are hoping that we will be able to come to an amicable agreement with the union that accommodates cabin crew concerns while protecting the financial sustainability of the airline, even before the court date in June,” added Tlali.