[ellenstaylor@yahoo.com]

My husband and I flew South African Airways from Cape Town through Johanesburg and on to Livingstone, Zambia in September 2009. During that flight, my husband's entire suitcase was stolen, never to be seen again by us, and someone rifled through my suitcase and pilfered items. We filed the apppropriate claims, but South African Airways has pretty much refused to recompense us for loss. They did finally send us $400 but the claims were for nearly $2000. They keep sending us nicely worded polite emails (and one letter) but the bottom line is that they deny responsibility. When we got back home, I looked up their record and found that a few years ago they had such problems with their baggage handlers stealing items that they started a new program of sealing the suitcases in plastic. Evidently this plastic sealing is not done any longer because we never saw any suitcase so protected while we were flying around South Africa. With the World Cup coming to South Africa in 2010, I think the world should know not to fly on South African Ariways since the airline cannot control their employees and hence no checked baggage is safe from being opened and things stolen from it - or, in the case of my husband, the entire suitcase being stolen. In some of their emails they admitted they had a bad problem with their employees stealing, but they seem to do nothing except tell the passenger to file a claim on his/her own insurance. I am angry and disgusted that they treat passengers this way and continue to get away with it. Stay away from South African Airways.

[WoodyJHB]

I'm not an airline employee but I am a SAA frequent flyer. I'm an American who has lived in South Africa for the last 12 years and I must say, on the whole, South African Airways is hands down better than any airline I ever flew in the US in terms of being on time, courtesy of the cabin crew and amenities offered. However, I do tell any of my friends who fly SAA though Joburg to collect their baggage and recheck it if their layover is more than a couple hours. Several years ago there was a serious problem at OR Tambo airport with bags being stolen and pilfered from but they've changed the handling company and things have improved dramatically. I would suggest you also seek recompense from the Airports Company of South Africa (http://www.acsa.co.za/home.asp?pid=3634) who employ the baggage handlers.
Not to diminish your hardship, have you checked the SAA baggage liability and conditions on their web site? They specifically say that valuables are not to be included in checked baggage. There are also international conventions that limit their liability in this regard and I believe it's much closer to the $400 you received than the $2000 you claimed.

[rui.bashir]

Dear WoodyJHB,

Comparing US airlines with SAA or vice-versa is nuisance. That's why none of the US airline nor SAA ever achive the 5 star Skytrax ranking. If any airline needs to benchmark in the industry please then must chose a midle-east or asian service provider.
SAA's level of service is going down day after day and the solution here is not just looking after business class passengers such as yourself. SAA needs to consider economy class passengers when it comes to service delivery as well.
The cabin attendants attitude at SAA are sometimes annoying like on my last flight on SAA the hostess spent 75% of the flight chatting to passenger friends and ignoring her duties during the flight....this is just to mention one of the lack of service delivery from SAA...