South African Airways Receives 4-Star Skytrax Ranking for 12th Year

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Jan 17, 2014, 12:40 ET

JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- South African Airways (SAA), the leading airline on the African continent, has been awarded the 4-Star Airline ranking for 2014 by Skytrax, the independent, global airline rating organisation, for the 12^th year in a row.

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SAA also remains the only carrier on the African continent to achieve this high level 4-Star Airline rating.

Providing Excellent Customer Service is one of five strategic objectives of SAA's Long-Term Turnaround Strategy, named Gaining Altitude.

Skytrax is the leading, independent authority on airline quality and assessment, and completed quality audit checks with SAA examining in detail all product and service delivery areas across both international and domestic routes. The Skytrax Star ranking audit examines more than 800 areas of product and service delivery, across both airport operations and the cabin experience.

SAA's 4-Star ranking signifies that the airline has achieved a good standard of product across all travel categories, with standards of staff service delivery in both the onboard and airport environments also being well ranked.

"SAA staff is dedicated in providing our customers the best service possible. We have worked hard to ensure this ranking and will implement further improvements. Our position as the leading carrier on the continent is confirmed by the fact that we are still the only carrier on the African continent to have achieved the high level 4-Star airline rating," says Monwabisi Kalawe, SAA Group CEO.

Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax said: "SAA has both maintained and improved quality levels throughout the past year, and continue to deliver world-class product and service standard to their customers, making their 4-Star ranking well-deserved.

"This 4-Star Ranking demonstrates that South African Airways passengers can look forward to a high quality of product and service. The Skytrax ranking provides an accurate and independent guide for travellers around the world, and the 4-Star Airline status is a most respected category. SAA has been ranked a 4-Star Airline for a number of years, and we are delighted to see them retain this status for 2014."

About South African Airways

South African Airways (SAA), Africa's most awarded airline, operates to 42 destinations worldwide. In its domestic market SAA has an extensive schedule operating 660 flights in total per week between Johannesburg – Cape Town, Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth, from its Johannesburg hub, as well as code-shared flights between Lanseria – Cape Town and Durban. SAA offers more frequencies than any other airline in South Africa. Regionally, SAA offers 26 destinations across the African continent including Abidjan, Accra, Blantyre, Brazzaville, Cotonou, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Douala, Entebbe, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville, Lilongwe, Livingstone, Luanda, Lusaka, Maputo, Mauritius, Nairobi, Ndola, Pointe Noire, Victoria Falls and Windhoek. SAA's international network creates links to all major continents from South Africa through 11 direct routes and code shares, with daily flights from Johannesburg to London (Heathrow), Frankfurt, Munich, Mumbai, Perth, Hong Kong, Beijing, New York, Washington, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. SAA has codes share agreements with 27 other airlines across the markets it serves. SAA's core business is the provision of passenger airline and cargo transport services together with related services, which are provided through SAA and its four wholly owned subsidiaries: SAA Technical; Mango its low cost carrier; Air Chefs, the catering entity of SAA and South African Travel Centre (SATC). SAA is a Star Alliance member which offers more than 21,900 daily flights to 1,328 airports in 195 countries. SAA is the winner of the 'Best Airline in Africa' Award in the regional category for eleven consecutive years. Mango and SAA hold the number one and number two successive spots as South Africa's most on-time airlines.