Spin -vs- Reality

I recently read an article, or was it an advertorial, entitled “In Place / SAA Customer Service” by Steve Allison in a local disability magazine. I read the article extoling the virtues of SAA/ACSA twice, and my wife then read it, and we came to the conclusion that we must be living in some sort of a parallel universe because the SAA described was certainly not the same SAA we experienced earlier this year, or in recent years for that matter.

I booked and purchased two SAA tickets in January for a flight from Cape Town to Durban, and, trying to do the right thing called their offices to confirm that I was in a wheelchair, and would need the services of their PAU. My call was handled in a very offhand manner by someone who could barely speak English, and then to top it all I was told they “would decide if I could fly or not” but I had to phone them to find out if I was to be so lucky! I called each week, and each time was given a different excuse as to why a decision had not been taken. After a month, and with the departure date now only a week away I was told that because the flights had been sub-contracted to SA Express and Mango they could not guarantee that I would be loaded on the aircraft. SAA fobbed me off on Mango, Mango claimed it was not their problem, and SA Express were not even interested in talking to me. After calling in some contacts I was able to secure an eMail from SAA stating that I would be boarded. None of the promised returns of calls ever materialised.

On the return leg I requested a luggage tag/receipt for my wheelchair (one is not covered by insurance without it). The check-in counter told me that the boarding gate would provide one. The boarding gate told me that the air crew would provide one, which was of course absolute nonsense, and they knew it. Past experience has taught me not to wait until one is at the doorway of the aircraft, was the engines roaring in the background, to resolve these issues. Nor should one wait until being seated and all your negotiating power is lost. I was informed that I was being “difficult” because I insisted on a receipt, not and did not leave the airport building before I had received it .

My seats had been allocated mid-plane? Why is anyone’s guess as the aircraft was barely half full and there were seats available nearer to the entrances/exits. The slipper chairs provided no upper body support and had no chest straps for me, even when being carried manually down the stairs out of the one aircraft (I thought we had left that method behind years ago). The staff did not appear to understand the consequences of no upper body support, so my wife had to hold my shoulders else I would have toppled over. It was like being in a time warp back to my first flight back in 1981 when disabled travel was virtually unheard of.

The disturbing fact that comes through time and time again with my travels is a fundamental lack of understanding of the purpose of their jobs by the SAA/ACSA staff. One gets the distinct impression that a disabled passenger and their wheelchair are viewed merely as yet another item of luggage. That impression is all too often reinforced by the manner in which one is handled both physically and mentally. The most frustrating aspect of these encounters is that I know personally that during the late 1980s and early 1990s a tremendous amount of good work was done between the disabled advocacy groups and SAA/ACSA. Sadly it appears that with the changes in these companies, the retrenchments and replacements in staff, the knowledge and expertise that had been developed has been lost.

ACSA are still trapped in the old aircraft boarding mindset used prior to all our major airports having walk-on tunnels to the aircraft. They do not appear to understand that with the advent of the walk-on tunnels there is no longer a need to use a PAU (passenger assistance unit). Everywhere else in the world one waits at the boarding gate, the ground staff wheel you down the tunnel prior to boarding, get one seated, pass the wheelchair to luggage services, and then load the remaining passengers. Here in South Africa ACSA take one out the building, load one onto a PAU, drive to the aircraft, raise the PAU, offload you from the PAU, seat, take the wheelchair back onto the PAU, down to the ground, stow the wheelchair, and then back to the airport building. It’s insane. When we landed at our destination my wife asked them to bring up my wheelchair, she loaded me in, and we walked off down the tunnel. The whole process took less than two minutes. The ground staff were dumbfounded and stared at us open mouthed has we disappeared down the tunnel into the airport building. They appeared to have never thought of that before.

As I said earlier, this is not an isolated incident. My experiences with SAA and ACSA have found them to be uncommunicative, rude, aggressive and on occasions deceitful. My travelling companions have often expressed shock and embarrassment at the manner in which I have been treated and handled by the staff. It has subsequently come to light that SAA/ACSA is sponsoring various disabled initiatives, hence the fluff piece about their customer service.

SAA/ACSA caring companies?
I remain unconvinced.