You have the Right to Reimbursement and Compensation: South African Airways

If you’ve experienced flight delays or cancellations with South African Airways, you may be entitled to receive up to €600 in compensation per person.

South African Airways’s latest on-time performance data reveals that out of 392 flight departures in the last 24 hours, 74.23% departed on time.

How many flights were canceled today?

• According to our most recent data South African Airways canceled 6 flights in 24 hours.

• 0.42% of domestic flights and 3.21% of international flights have been canceled.

• If your flight was canceled and you had less than 14 days notice, you could be owed up to €600 compensation. Check here.

Flight Cancellation Compensation South African Airways

Regardless of whether you're at home or abroad when you find out about your South African Airways flight cancellation, you're going to have a lot of questions and concerns. The first thing to know is that South African Airways should find you a new flight, or offer you a full refund.

But because flight cancellations almost always play havoc with your travel plans, you should check whether you're also entitled to claim South African Airways cancelled flight compensation to help make up for the disruption.

Under UK and EU regulations, South African Airways should pay passengers up to €600 per person when they cancel flights at late notice — that is, any flight cancellation less than 14 days before it was due to depart.

Exceptions:
South African Airways will not have to pay compensation if they were able to offer a replacement flight with similar departure and arrival times to the original. You can check the exact requirements on our flight cancellation compensation page.

Airlines also don't have to pay compensation if extraordinary circumstances were at play. That means that if an unusual situation occurred that was outside of the airline's control but forced a cancellation, there's no South African Airways flight cancellation compensation owed. Typical examples include bad weather or a strike by air traffic control.

How many flights were delayed today?

• Our latest data shows that over a 24-hour period, 4 South African Airways flights were delayed 3 hours or more.

• Of 236 flights, 0.00% were delayed over 3 hours. That rate was 2.56% for international flights.

• Passengers who arrive at their destination over 3 hours late could be owed compensation. Check your flight.

South African Airways Flight Delay Compensation

Whenever you're kept waiting by South African Airways flight delays, it's worth checking whether you're entitled to compensation for your time. If South African Airways is responsible for the delay, EU regulations say that passengers are owed up to €600 per person when they're delayed by 3 hours or more.

When you're claiming flight delay compensation, South African Airways will check what time the flight arrived at the final destination. That's because for flight delay claims it is the time that you arrived that is important, not the time of departure. AirHelp owns one of the most comprehensive databases of flight stats available, so we can always back up South African Airways flight delay compensation claims with the exact delay time.

Exceptions:
Airlines like South African Airways do not have to pay out compensation if there's some external reason for the delay. That means delays caused by bad weather, an incident at the airport, or air traffic control strikes are not eligible for compensation. These kind of situations are called extraordinary circumstances.

You can learn more about what is and isn't included on our flight delay compensation page.

Even though South African Airways is not a European airline, they always comply with European laws every time they depart from a European airport. That means passengers flying out of a European airport with South African Airways are protected by EC 261, one of the world's most comprehensive air passenger rights laws.

This gives passengers the right to claim flight delay compensation, South African Airways cancellation compensation, or overbooking compensation if South African Airways is responsible for the issue. That's in addition to their rights to a flight refund.

Unfortunately, the same protections don't apply for flights going the other way. South African Airways passengers who land in the EU are not covered by EC 261 if the departure airport is outside the EU. For these flights, you'll need to check what other air passenger rights apply.

Which South African Airways Flights are Covered by EC 261?

Table shows values in € as specified in EC 261. Distances and amounts are similar under UK law.

There are exceptions and special circumstances which may impact how much compensation owes in your case. The easiest way to find out what you’re owed is to use our free compensation check.

Flight statistics: delays and cancellations of South African Airways

Punctuality of South African Airways (24 hours):

Total flights: 392
On-time flights: 291
Punctuality rate: about 74.23% of all flights were on time
Long delays (greater than 3 hours): 4
Flight cancellations: 6

The number of flights shown is an estimate based on internal and third-party databases.