South African Airways rated among the world’s best in airline catering

JOHANNESBURG, 19 July 2014 – South African Airways’ (SAA) efforts in serving the best food in-flight has been internationally recognised as the airline made it to the top ten in the World's Best Business Class Airline Catering category at the 2014 World Airline Awards. This accolade is in addition to the awards SAA collected this week where the airline was named the Best Airline Africa for the twelfth consecutive year, and also scooped the Best Airline Staff Service Africa award for the third time.
 
SAA is the only African airline that made the top ten in the catering category. Bongi Sodladla, SAA’s Senior Food and Beverage Manager and Sommelier says: “Making the world’s top ten in the catering department is a credit and an indication of the hard work delivered by SAA. 
 
“We select a global palette of wines with bold flavours that complement the vibrant and delicious menu offerings which reflect our cosmopolitan airline. In doing so, we must assess the ability of the food and the wine to maintain their flavour and still excel even at 30,000 feet off the ground, as human taste buds may be dulled by up to 30% when flying. The meals must be really captivating and well-crafted in order to delight our customers travelling for both business and leisure purposes,” says Sodladla.
 
SAA has, in the past year, been reviewing its catering service providers around the world and have managed to source and select top inflight catering service providers with flair and finesse, thus assisting the airline in delivering a remarkable and consistent product standard. Understanding customer preferences, current trends in cuisine for the different routes and delivering accordingly, has been SAA’s primary focus, which subsequently set the airline apart from its African peers. 
 
SAA’s Spokesperson, Mr Tlali Tlali says: “As SAA, we have not only been defined by our impressive operational and catering results, but by our complete and sincere commitment to good customer service. Undoubtedly, the top ten accolade that has been bestowed upon us is an exciting stakeholder affirmation that we are moving in the right direction, and this will certainly motivate us to augment our efforts even further. It resonates well with one of the key objectives of our long term strategy, which is to provide an excellent customer service.”
 
 
ENDS
 
About South African Airways
South African Airways (SAA), Africa’s most awarded airline, operates to 40 destinations worldwide.
In its domestic market SAA has an extensive schedule operating 554 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 24 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 10 direct routes and code shares, with daily flights from Johannesburg to London (Heathrow), Frankfurt, Munich, Mumbai, Perth, Hong Kong, Beijing, New York, Washington, and Sao Paulo. SAA has codes share agreements with 29 other airlines across the markets it serves. The airline has extended its code share agreement with Mango, its low cost operator, to also include coastal cities in South Africa (between Johannesburg and Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and George), as well as Johannesburg – Bloemfontein; Cape Town - Bloemfontein and Cape Town  - Port Elizabeth.
 
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.
 
For more information contact:
 
SAA
Tlali Tlali  (Mr)                                                                         
SAA spokesperson                                                                                                         
Mob:     +27 82 333 3880                                                    
Email:    TlaliTlali@flysaa.com 
 
Digital
Website: www.flysaa.com
Twitter: @flysaa
Facebook: www.facebook.com/flysaa