On a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg onto Singapore, I hit a delay. The domestic Comair flight (local South African operator for British Airways (BA)) got delayed by 3 hours! Now nothing is perfect, even less so if you’re in Africa, but I don’t think it is unreasonable for the pilot / staff to say “Yeah, mate we’ve got a problem – better grab another flight so you don’t miss your international flight“.

We sat in the plane after closing the doors for just over 30 minutes. Finally, the pilot said he was waiting for a piece of instrumentation. A half an hour later, we left the aircraft. Mmm – I’d just lost one hour of the 3 hours check in time. Fifteen minutes later we boarded the same aircraft again and just as we started moving an engine valve failed. Don’t the South Africans check their aircraft??

Needless to say, I missed my connection to Singapore.

Squealing, Comair gave me something that looked like a credit note of sorts that they claimed would be a Quantas flight to Sydney and Virgin onto Brisbane. The note worked upto Sydney but then Virgin Airlines had never seen or known of any booking to Brisbane made by Comair on my behalf for the delayed flight. So I had to buy another ticket!!!

Back in Australia, I complained to Comair and initially they said the following after a couple days – “In common with other airlines we are unable to accept liability for the consequences of a flights delay, cancellation or diversion…”

What rubbish! Needless to say it took a couple weeks of pain and frustration to recoup some of the money lost on the purchase of another plane ticket.

Comair can definitely learn a thing or two from Quantas. Before the plane even arrived at Johannesburg, the ground staff had informed the passengers that the trip back to Sydney would be delayed – an inconvenience but at least it was communicated timeously.

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