South African Airways (SAA) has been announced a winner at the World Airline Awards for fifteen consecutive years.

At this year’s World Airline Awards run by aviation experts Skytrax, the airline won the Best Staff Service award as part of the highly acclaimed international awards held at the Paris Air Show.

SAA also managed to retain its 4-Star rating for the 15th year in a row.

“To win the Best Staff Service award shows that our customer-facing employees are our true brand ambassadors who made a difference to more than 19 million travelling customers. Feedback on excellent customer service is simply priceless,” says Zuks Ramasia, SAA General Manager Operations.

These awards are based on unsolicited customer feedback which makes them the benchmark of airline excellence.

“This is testimony to our commitment to reach and maintain one of our strategic objectives of Excellent Customer Service. This award celebrates the excellence of our staff.  

“Being an award winner for 15 years in a row inspires us to seek further opportunities for service excellence as the airline moves towards a brighter future. Customer feedback is very important, and we incorporate customer feedback and insights gained therefrom into improving the overall customer experience,” says Ramasia.

Our 4-Star airline rating by Skytrax - in both economy and business class - for 15 years in a row is a confirmation of our consistent service standards.

“We have maintained quality levels on all the services we offer - in our home market, across the African continent and internationally. This has been a particularly difficult year for the industry, but we still maintained a world-class product and service standards to our customers, making our 4-Star Airline rating well deserved.”

The 4-Star rating follows after detailed product and service standards audits throughout the airline, and included SAA’s new Airbus A330-300 aircraft.

This means customers considered whether airlines provide 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 and in-flight entertainment.

“We will continue with the introduction of service enhancements to add to a host of improvements such as a family check-in services at OR Tambo International Airport; Improvement in our food and beverage offering with the introduction of African-inspired regional meals (specific to East and West Africa) in Business Class; serving an awarding winning selection of locally produced wines.

“Business Class amenity kits were designed by a young South African designer. Currently new designs for the 2018 collection is in progress. The introduction of three new Airbus A330-300 aircraft saw the launch of new Business Class seating, giving every customer access to the aisle as well as ensuring increased privacy. The new inflight entertainment product is state of the art allowing fast navigation and high definition viewing.

“We have also introduced a new Pet Lounge for our Cargo division at OR Tambo International Airport,” concludes Ramasia.