The South African Airways Lounge in Johannesburg is the flagship lounge for the airline and as such it is the grandest. Upon checking into the lounge, you are directed to the right for the Business Class Lounge, however of note, if you look left, you see that there is a First Class Lounge.
This was quite interesting to me simply because I was not aware that any South African flights offered First Class.
I later found out that South African does not in fact offer First Class on any of its routes but rather the First Class Lounge is reserved for long time members that had qualified for elite status for a long period of time.
I managed to talk myself into a quick glance into the First Class Lounge … for science.
The First Class Lounge was sparsely occupied as you would expect based on the qualifications required to access the lounge. There were more meeting rooms and areas that you could have a private conversation but the food and drink selection was the same as on the Business Class side. The only thing that the First Class Lounge had over the Business Class Lounge was that there were sleep rooms and more showering facilities.
In my estimation, the Business Class lounge is about 90% as good as the First Class Lounge so don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything when you visit. As the lounges share the same area, the views of the tarmac are very similar.
The transitional area between the First and Business Lounges has a storage area for your bags but because they are unsecured, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my bags there, which is evidently how many felt based on the number of bags in the lounge and not in the cubbies.
As was with the South African Lounge in Cape Town, the food choices were lacking but since I had breakfast on the incoming flight, it did not bother me at all but if I hadn’t had the chance to eat, I would have been pretty unhappy with the food options.
I have always dreamt of flying on a private jet and while it’s still on my bucket list it just hasn’t happened for me yet.
The next best thing happened on our flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
While the flight between CPT and JNB is a short one (~1:30 in the air), this flight would provide me with some foreshadowing as we were connecting in JNB to an international flight to Sao Paulo on South African.
As was the case in Istanbul, we were taken by bus to board the plane via airstairs rather than via jet bridge. While it is certainly less convenient, I always love the chance to get up close and personal to aircraft. The smell of jet fuel, the noise of the engines idling … all of it just brings a smile to my face.
The A320 we would be flying on is a narrowbody plane so no layflat seats but nonetheless, the seats were very comfortable for this short positioning flight.
As we sat down, we saw numerous people stream by to get to their economy seats and to my surprise, NOBODY sat down in any of the Business Class seats.
What I found even stranger is that the flight attendants did not upgrade any of the economy class passengers to Business Class. I don’t know if it was because there were no passengers with status or if they simply didn’t want to deal with the hassle of additional Business Class passengers to serve but in either case, I was pretty happy that we had the entire front of the plane to ourselves. Based on my desire to fly in luxury but only pay a fraction of what economy class passengers pay for their tickets, I figured this was as close to a private jet as I was going to get in a long while.
Being a short haul flight, I didn’t expect much but there was no in flight entertainment which is something that was unexpected. That being said, with the flight being so short, coupled with the fact that they served a full breakfast, I didn’t really mind.
Another thing that I like about sitting up front is that you often get a view of the cockpit going through their flight checklist before they secure the cabin doors.
As we got to cruising altitude the flight attendants provided breakfast. I don’t know what it is about breakfast on airplanes but it is always the least appealing mean in my opinion. Maybe it’s that you can’t really make eggs and sausage look pretty but I’m never blown away when they bring the tray out.
I will say that despite the look of the food, it was actually quite tasty. They yogurt and muesli were actually very good as was the croissant and eggs. I passed on the sausage and potatoes but I felt full and satisfied after the meal.
The service was quick and very attentive which gave me something to look forward to as our next flight was from Johannesburg to Sao Paulo.
As sad as it was to have to leave Cape Town, I was very much looking forward to flying South African Airways based on the previous trip reports that I had read. While probably not as plush as some other airlines, I would say that South African does a real good job at embracing their African heritage as is demonstrated by the design of their planes and lounges.
With a 6:10AM push back, we got to the Cape Town Airport fairly early and after clearing security, we immediately went to the South African Airways Lounge.
I must admit that early morning flights are not my favorite as it takes me a while to wake up so I may have initially judged this lounge a little too harshly that morning. After looking back at the picture, I see that the lounge is quite nicely designed, however, I do remember not being very impressed due to the lack of food choices early in the morning.
As I mentioned, the lounge is quite nicely designed with rooms that offer a unique experience. Take the picture below as an example. This particular room in the lounge served as a media room that was showing the news. It is uniquely designed and looks like the hull of a ship. With the room empty in the early morning, it looked very cool but I wonder what it would be like when the lounge is busy.
The lounge also featured a cool conference table set up that allows people to work in the lounge and is supplemented by computers for those that didn’t bring their laptops.
As I mentioned previously, my biggest problem with this lounge is the lack of good food choices. There was coffee available from an automated coffee machine and instead of water bottles, the lounge offers water from dispensers which offered still and sparkling water (machine to the right of the coffee machine).
I found that the only thing on offer was muffins when we first got to the lounge, along with bread and jams. Not exactly what I would call a full spread.
Later on, we were offered a bit more food but it was all cold food and I’m not a huge fan of having cold cuts and yogurt in the morning. The only thing that was hot were croissants (in the silver serving tray) and while they were quite good, I was left wanting.
The lounge is quite large and is uniquely shaped so there seems to be plenty of area to find some privacy. I even found a “kids” area but I don’t know many kids that would find this part of the lounge particularly exciting.
We were only in the lounge for 45 minutes or so before we went to catch our plane to Johannesburg. While I found the lounge adequate, it certainly is not one that I would rate better than average.
We managed to find flight availability from Istanbul to Cape Town on Turkish Airlines so we snapped up the opportunity to fly them a second time. Similar to the first time, the flight was a red eye and left very late at night (or very early in the morning depending on how you look at it). Prior to boarding the flight, we spent a glorious 7 hours in the Turkish Airlines CIP Lounge in Istanbul.
Once again, we were up in Business Class aboard Turkish Airline’s long haul workhorse, the A330-300. Unfortunately, this flight was serviced by a plane that had a slightly older hard product (less storage, no wifi, no live TV) but I was still looking forward to the food on board. I was hoping for a quicker dinner service due to the time but like the other flight, the service took about 2.5 hours.
Once on board, we were presented with the amenity kit for the flight. Turkish Airlines mixes their amenity kits up depending on whether you are arriving into Turkey or departing from Turkey. On the ex-Turkey flight, we were presented with a Jaguar branded amenity kit. The bag that the amenities come in is a nice size and is designed to fit an iPad. I used it for storing all or my cables and chargers and it was probably the best bag that I received on this round the world trip.
The kit contained hand/face cream, lip balm, a shoe horn, eye mask, comb/brush, socks, ear plugs, toothbrush and toothpaste. Like before, you are provided with stickers to place on your seat to let the flight attendant know whether or not to wake you for breakfast.
I skipped the wine on this flight and went with an orange juice to wash down my mezze and warm nuts.
The service on this flight was very similar to that of our Montreal to Istanbul flight and it’s nice to see a consistent quality of service as some airlines are very hit or miss depending on the whim of the purser and flight attendants.
I was provided with my bread plate which came with butter, spices, olive oil, a bread bowl and magnetic salt and pepper shakers that are shaped like minarets. My favorite part about this setup is that the salt and pepper shakers are magnetized which allows them to placed on the ceramic plate without having to worry about whether or not they slide off during turbulence.
You are provided with two full sets of silverware (yes, not plasticware) along with a napkin and a candle so you can enjoy a “candlelight dinner in the sky”.
While it is a cheap electronic candle, I love that Turkish Airlines goes out of their way to make your meal service an experience.
Once again, the soup was served in a brass bowl and was very delicious. Again, my apologies for not photographing the menu but if I remember correctly, this was a pumpkin based soup.
Along with the soup, a nice chicken salad was served and it was very good. The chicken managed to stay moist and the veggies were crisp.
For the main course, I went with the sea bass with potatoes and an assortment of vegetables. The fish was very buttery but unfortunately a bit overcooked and dry but still edible and delicious.
For dessert, Turkish Airlines wheels around a trolley full of delicious desserts and you are free to pick whatever strikes your fancy. As we were in Istanbul for 4 days, I had my fill of Turkish sweets but I just couldn’t resist a couple more baklava. Also couldn’t resist the pistachio ice cream. Both were very delicious and left me very full.
After dinner, I went to bed and had an excellent 6 hour sleep. I was woken up about 1.5 hours outside of Durban and provided with the breakfast I had chosen the night before. This was probably the best breakfast I had on any of my flights. Everything was very well presented and tasted great. As there was nothing to cook, nothing was dry or overcooked. Once again, I was provided with full silverware to eat my breakfast.
Now for a lesson in airline terminology. This flight is marketed as a direct flight from Istanbul to Cape Town. So why the stop in Durban? Well a direct flight is a flight between two cities without a change in the flight number but may include a stop for refueling and to take on additional passengers.
As this time between brake on and push back was only an hour, it wasn’t a big deal and allowed us to get changed for our imminent arrival in Cape Town.
If you are looking for a flight that goes from point to point without any stops, you are looking for a nonstop flight so be aware that a direct flight is not the same thing.
