FERIAL HAFFAJEE: SAA's shrinkage after capture years won't cost peanuts
The agents offered me a variety of airlines as they booked a seat to London for me. British Airways. Virgin. SAA. My instinct was for Virgin or British, but my loyalty is with SAA, the national airline battling to resurrect itself after years of corruption and capture. I had read about how valiantly the new CEO, Vuyani Jarana, is trying to get the carrier's head above water. And so I clicked SAA on the menu of options, even though it was marginally more expensive. As I went to check in last Saturday, the clerk clearly had a problem, and a process that usually takes a minute or three had her grimacing at the screen and looking nervously at me. I had been bumped despite my ticket which was a full fare, purchased neither on discount nor miles. I'm from Bosmont, where they cook tough in the soup and where we are born with steel-tipped elbows, so I kicked up a squeal. But it was to no end. A supervisor explained that the airline had changed from a big to a small plane and many of us had ...
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