UK & Ireland Travel Trade

09 April 2022

South African Airways (SAA) has maintained a 4-Star Skytrax ranking, in both Business and Economy Class, for a 16th consecutive year.

“This win will surely strengthen our global position for once again being awarded a 4-Star ranking. Awards demonstrate that SAA is standing its ground as one of the leading airlines in the world, despite the challenges the Group is facing,” said Tlali Tlali, SAA spokesperson.

The SAA stations audited this year were South Africa: ORTIA, Durban, and Cape Town; regional – Mauritius and international: Hong Kong, UK, Perth, and São Paulo. “We were also fortunate to have had our new Airbus A330-300 audited this year amongst our aircraft fleet. The A330-300s are state-of-the-art aircraft and the latest acquisition in our fleet,” said Tlali.

The Skytrax 4-Star ranking is a seal of quality approval awarded to airlines supplying good quality performance across a range of product and service-delivery rating areas. Skytrax assessed the rating after detailed product and service standards audits for each featured airline and not connected to any customer ratings.

A 4-Star Airline rating signifies airlines providing a good standard of product and staff service across all travel categories, including cabin seating, safety standards, cabin cleanliness, comfort amenities, catering, tax-free sales, reading materials, in-flight entertainment, and staff service.

Skytrax, an independent, global airline-rating organisation, awarded the 4-Star rating placing the airline amongst other international and partner airlines. SAA has maintained quality levels throughout what has been another challenging year for the airline, delivering an excellent product and service standards to our customers, making this 4-Star Airline ranking well deserved.

Skytrax commented: “The South African Airways product and service standards continue to perform at a standard that is meeting 4-Star levels and this applies to long-haul, regional, and domestic flights.”

“SAA operates in a highly competitive environment with other African airlines such as Air Mauritius, Royal Air Maroc, Air Seychelles, and Ethiopian Airways also achieving 4 Stars. I encourage you to keep up the great work and always aim for greater heights. Winning awards inspires us to seek further opportunities for service excellence and act as an important motivation for employees to keep doing their best and further improve the travel experience of the millions of customers who choose to fly with SAA,” said Tlali.

SAA recently also won four of the six APEX Regional Passenger Choice Awards (PCAs) for Best Seat Comfort, Best Cabin Service, Best Food and Beverage, and Best Overall in Africa for airlines operating in the Africa region. The airline won the Best in Region – Africa award twice before, in 2012 and 2011.

Major awards SAA received in 2017:

•   SAA retained a 4-Star Skytrax rating in both Economy and Business Class for 15 years in a row. The airline is the proud holder of the Skytrax award as Best Airline in Africa for 14 years running.
•   SAA’s in-flight magazine Sawubona won the award for Africa’s Leading In-flight Magazine for the third year in a row at the World Travel Awards™, voted for by travel and tourism professionals worldwide.
•   A Voyager member, Dr Sheng Chun Wen, with Gold status, won one million Voyager miles with his composite image as part of the Star Alliance competition offering one million miles from each of the 21 Frequent Flyer Programmes. The competition was in celebration of Star Alliance’s 20th anniversary.
•   Readers of the Business Traveller magazine chose SAA for the 11th consecutive year as Best African Airline at the Business Traveller Awards 2017.  The awards are widely regarded as the market’s benchmark for excellence.
•   SAA was named winner in the African Long-Haul Airline category at the Business Traveller Africa Conference and Awards in September, an event for the South African business travel trade, which is held in association with Business Traveller magazine.
•   SAA again took first place in the Domestic Airline category at the Sunday Times Top Brand Awards, which are based on research conducted by leading market research company, TNS, and reflects consumer and business perspectives on brands in South Africa.