http://iagblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html Picture Credit
Time was I would travel SAA by choice, but my trip last night has made me wonder. The Airbus A340 is old (not like the new A340-600 in the picture above) and tired, no in-seat entertainment - just ropey old TVs that fold down from above, with several of them making the picture from Zimbabwe Television look good.
And their cabin crew are simply noisy. They can't do anything quietly!
The icing on the cake for me though, was the real madam we had in our section. I am not kidding you, her rear fusilage was wider than the trolley she kept pushing into people and seats. She was an accident waiting happen, and I helped her several times by passing her things that had fdallen off her trolley as she bulldozed the aisles.
I wanted to take a picture, but one stern look from this mama was enough to scare me off. In the middle of the night I went back for some water, and there she was, on the floor of the galley, wrapped in passanger blankets. Almost awake. Personally I doubt she would have squeezed into the cramped sleeping stations where crew usually take there rest breaks.
At breakfast today, she came bruising down the aisle, shouting, yes shouting, 'coldy met or hotti omrette' which loosley translated means 'would you like cold meats or hot omlette for breakfast?'
You might imagine that several tourists could not understand - and asked her to repeat the options. Louder still: 'coldy met or hotti om-rette', and finally a thundering, slower, more deliberate: 'I said col-de meat-i or hottt OMrette' before most people just said 'OK' and accepted whatever came. Fortunately I had ordered fruit platters for my meals, so I had eaten a good 15 minutes before others got to choose between the col met or the omrette.
The final laugh was watching my fine stewardess race through collecting the headsets just before we landed - and tripping up over them every three or fours steps. No wonder most of them don't work that well.
South African Scareways - the live entertainment is free! The Captain taxied up to the gate and suddenly breaked with a shudder. He apologised: 'So sorry about that ladies and gentlemen, but the little man waving the pingpong bats kept signalling for me to come forward, and then gave the stop sign without remembering to first give me the slow-down signal'. Great way to end the flight. World Cup Soccer 2010 is sure going to be eventful for loads of folks.
