Airlink vs South African Airways

[tomahawk]

Flying from Joburg to Windhoek (economy) and trying to work out who to go with. The online reviews of both of these carriers don’t fill me with a lot of confidence!! Any input welcome. Thank you.

[David D]

I would go with Airlink. They’re efficiently operated and run a good service. They are separate from the flailing state-owned enterprise that is South African Airways, that is so badly mismanaged I’m surprised they are still flying. I wouldn’t fly SAA just based on this. SAA have lost a significant share of the local market to better run outfits such as Airlink and FlySafair in the last few years.

[LD27]

We are travelling around Southern Africa in a couple of months and have booked a number of Airlink flights. Before we booked, we talked to South African friends and relatives who have all have flown internally – all recommended Airlink and said avoid SAA! Can only report back from my experience in a couple of months. However my son has just returned from SA and flew on a number of Airlink flights and had no issues at all and would recommend. If there were major issues he certainly would not have recommended we go ahead and book! Unfortunately it seems you can’t use Avios.

[yorkshireRich]

Airlink are very efficient. One of the best airlines I’ve flown, up there with Bangkok Airways.

[tomahawk]

Thanks all.

Also had a chat with a couple of people and the universal answer seems to be Airlink.

[R]

Flew SAA a few months back CPT-JNB because timings worked better and it was absolutely fine.

[WaynedP]

R wrote:

Flew SAA a few months back CPT-JNB because timings worked better and it was absolutely fine.

Hope you had a good visit to Pilanesberg, @R