May 10, 2006 08:11 PM
7305 Views
(Updated May 10, 2006 08:12 PM)
I happened to travel to Cape Town this week. I had to take economy class SAA flight from Mumbai to Johannesburg and a SAA Domestic to Cape Town.
The flight started at it's usual time 2:20 AM. The flight was not completely full.
We were served drinks and then a late night dinner. The dinner was not exceptional but was fine (except the rock-hard idli's). The in-flight entertainment was good. But there was a shortage of Head phones. So we had to ask the stewards a couple of times to get one. We were served breakfast before we landed at Johannesburg at around 8:30 AM. We got down and had to clear the Immigration which took about 25 minutes (24 minutes standing in the queue). Again we had to stand in the queue for about 20 min for check-in of flight to Cape Town.
The flight had 2+4+2 seating in the Economy and 2+2+2 in the business class respectively. The business class is totally different. It was more spacious and comfortable.
Finally we got into the South African Airlines Domestic flight with 5 minutes to departure. The domestic flight was more comfortable than the International. It had more leg space and screens behind each seat. There were only 2 channels aired (1 for the flight information and other for the camera on the tail of the flight). We were served snacks as it was just a 2 Hr flight to Cape Town. We landed at Cape Town at 12:20 PM.
All-in-all the International flight was good with good food and service but the domestic flight was better and comfortable.
The only drawback with this flight is the timings. The return flight from Johannesburg reaches Mumbai at 12:30 AM which is a very odd time as there are no connecting flights to other parts of the India till about 6:30 in the morning (6 hrs of waiting time).
