Small touristic bonus of Knysna, Plettenberg Bay and Port Elizabeth surroundings
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Knysna Elephant Park
Ocean Safari from Plettenberg Bay : the Southern Right Whale
Some do other kinds of safaris ahah
Seal colony on Robberg ("seal" in Dutch) Peninsula
Plettenberg Bay
Robberg Peninsula
Knysna Heads / Outeniqua Peroni yacht charter (book last minute, they are dishonest with the weather as you cannot really see but trust me, book last minute only when you know the weather will be good)
The whole Featherbed Nature Reserve was burnt with the recent fires. The tour companies will tell you : no, everything is fine, there were not a lot of things that burnt… LOL
Birds of Eden, Plettenberg Bay
The Storms River Suspension Bridge in the Tsitsikamma forest : be prepared, the walk is long (and sometimes steep)
The Bloukrans bridge
Now, Port Elizabeth with the Addo Elephant Park. We took Ilios travel for this park, and I highly recommend them especially on a private tour!! Me with our very nice guide !
And the incredible view from the 18th floor of the Radisson Blu, Summerstrand *****
To get to the airport, we chose Uber as no other company answered my queries, which is frankly annoying. Should I thank them ? Ok, I travelled in a regular Chevrolet Sonic sedan but our driver was kind and I just spent 56 ZAR or 3.65 EUR. When you think that a basic bus ticket costs 2 EUR in Paris, FR, it gives you some perspective! Whatever the service, you will at best get a Mercedes C Class, so do not spend hundreds of rands, take Uber (and I really am not a fanboy)
Landside, it was not very bright but nonetheless clean and well organized
Here is the regular queue for Traveller class / Executive Club Blue
The one for web/app drop off
Ours : Club/oneworld Sapphire-Emerald check-in
The agent was a regular one but she did her job with professionalism and asked our final destination in case we would need to use an interline agreement. As the itinerary was complex, I said JNB was our final destination, but that was a lie of course! Who would want to explain that you'll take 6 flights in a row. Even SOF would be too much for the tags. No one at security, very quick ! Airside, it was not too packed and we easily found our way to the lounge
The Bidvest Premier Lounge is the first lounge you come across upon exiting the elevator, on the left hand side Behind it, you have the SAA Lounge
and the toilets
I don't have a lot of pictures of the lounge unfortunately, it got so crowded at one point that it became impractical. A lot of guests can enter this lounge because you can pay your entry (174 ZAR / pax) here, which is a lot different than an airline lounge.
My very light selection
It has nonetheless a better view than the lower level
And when there is a view, there is spotting !!
A Robinson reminding me some memories
There is a flight school here
General aviation : a famous C210 with retractable landing gear
Serious stuff arrive, a Safair 734
Bye, CRJ!
I love this livery, the painted springbok is just awesome
Then a handsome SAA A319 IAE
Oh, a VLJ
a B206 !
And the aircraft I wanted to fly, the Comair 734, going to Durban
Our aircraft finally landed here as well, it is one of the newest addition to the Comair's fleet and was delivered brand new from the Boeing factories, which is very unusual for Comair
It is equipped with the latest winglets called "split scimitar"
Boarding was called on-time but not very efficiently. We almost had to fight to get to the priority lane which was not indicated. The pretty nose
The split scimitar winglet
The CFM 56…
The fuselage…
Less glamorous… the Mango parked next door! It was dirty as hell
A… SAA Mechanic for Comair ?
The door was closed at 1:23PM, very good ! The First Officer which introduced himself over the PA, announced a 1 hour 25 minutes flight at FL350 Inside the cabin, the pitch was honest
The curtain, though, was a bit annoying because it tilted backwards
We were the only ones row 3 until a female pax decided to sit across when she saw no one was there
The overhead panel matched the aircraft's age
We even had "Sky interior"
The tray table was large
The headrest cover was of a basic blank fabric
No spotting while taxiing, I felt at that moment that I had taken enough pictures, don't you think so ? Take off video :
Climb to FL350, this BA painted winglet is a bright idea for crowdsourcing marketing
The curtain tilted even more
We had a choice between two hot sanwhiches : chicken with green pepper or vegetarian (spinach and feta)
We took the chicken and it was… spicy ! Probably made with a real strong curry that South African Indians like
it tasted actually very nice and better than it looked, for sure^^
Safety card : the front
the center
and the rear
The views confirm what you can see on Google Earth : it is a dry country
I could do a bit of spotting while we had to wait for this SA Express CRJ 700 to land It is interesting that a lot of the SA Express fleet was painted in the new color scheme whereas their website's fleet page does still not show the new scheme
ZS-SXI
And we were at our parking stand next to another Comair 738 at 3:05PM ! Will you a find a better punctuality anywhere else ? I am not sure!
We reached the luggage belt by 3:12PM after the "door" incident you'll find in the conclusion to laugh a bit.
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Verdict
British Airways (Comair)
7.5/10
Cabin8.0
Cabin crew7.5
Entertainment/wifi6.5
Meal/catering8.0
Bidvest Premier Lounge
6.9/10
Comfort7.0
Meal/catering7.0
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Services6.5
Port Elizabeth - PLZ
7.9/10
Efficiency8.0
Access6.0
Services7.5
Cleanliness10.0
Johannesburg - JNB
7.3/10
Efficiency8.0
Access5.0
Services7.0
Cleanliness9.0
Conclusion
Once again, an excellent flight with Comair that provided filling hot food for a less than 1.5hr flight. The crew are all very well trained and adress pax with a lot of esteem, like with the actual British Airways.
PLZ : you have to go towards the arrivals to pass security after having dropped off your bags, which is not really obvious; Nice to have two lounges for a small airport, but with a lot of traffic. Everything was clean. No one at security so it was quick, but when all the flights depart, it should be quite difficult to go quickly through it
JNB : the most basic service is to open the damn door of the jetbridge so pax can disembark. What are they thinking of ? A pax had to CALL a written phone number to be able to open the door before the staff finally realized they did not open it and came back... In my (short) entire life, I never saw a pax calling the aiport to open a door ! Hilarious.
2 LIKESLIKE TO THANK THE AUTHORTHANKS ! FLIGHT-REPORT LIKED
So glad you enjoyed your stay in SA (where I am from). Looking at your photos of Plett makes me want to hop on a plane right now! It looks like the catering on comer has declined since I last flew them (a full meal on a CPT-JNB flight), but good anyways!
Declined ? For us in Europe... it is a full meal ! When you see what AF serves on its domestic or short haul intl network, you'd be hungry as hell^^ Thanks for your comment!
Many years ago there was a very reliable taxi company in PE called Hurter Cabs. This was after cell phones became common, but before the days of Uber. I believe they closed a few years ago, which is very sad. These days it is unfortunate but many provincial South African cities don't have reliable phone cabs at all. Most people get around in 16-seater vans with fixed routes - those who can afford it either have their own car or use Uber. Actual on-call cabs are a dying breed, which makes travel that much harder.
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