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SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS’ FLAT BED SEAT IS THE
BEST IN THE WORLD
Johannesburg, August 11, 2004 -
South African Airways’ (SAA) business class flat bed seat is the best in the
world. In a survey conducted by Skytrax, SAA beat formidable competitors who
offer similar products, including, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. This is
the eighth award SAA has won since the beginning of the year.
SAA Acting President and CEO, Oyama Mabandla said: "We are honoured by such
accolades. We are constantly working to provide excellent service and product
to our customers. This award is a result of such hard work and innovation."
“The past couple of years we have seen a fairly constant battle of words
between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic about who had the best Business
Class seat, and I am sure it will come as a surprise to many that we selected
the new South African Airways flat-bed business class seat over both of these
airlines," said Peter Miller of Skytrax.
The award, by Skytrax, is one of the airline industry’s highest awards and the
highest quality achievement. Skytrax is a British-based leading specialist
advisor to the airline industry which provides intensive product and service
research, Quality evaluation Audits to airlines and airport operators and the
world.
“The Product Tests for this flat-bed analysis were conducted independently by
Skytrax Research, over a two month period July-August 2004. Long haul flights
to evaluate the different airline seats were compared on a like for like basis
with similar flight durations. The same research staff applied identical
comfort testing to each of these finalist airline's flat-bed seats,” Miller
added.
"We applied a wide criteria to the final quality analysis, and one has to
remember that both BA and Virgin have opted for an unconventional seat layout
to achieve maximum space utilisation. The end result is that BA has the forward
and rear facing format (liked and hated in equal amount by customers), whilst
Virgin adopted a herringbone layout (seats facing away from the cabin windows).
South African Airways opted for a more luxurious, traditional layout, using a
2x2x2 standard format in their Airbus A340 cabins," Miller said.
“The SAA seat provides a good flat bed position, good seat width in full
flat-bed position (24 inch width against Virgin's 22 inch), and the back
section of the seat pod offers good privacy - supplemented by a separate side
seat divider,” Skytrax said in a statement.
"We found the Virgin cushion support to be slightly softer than SAA, although
for the final sleep rating analysis, both of these seats scored 9.2 points out
of the maximum 10,” Skytrax added.
"In naming the South African Airways seat as Best, we have taken into account
the different uses and stages of a long haul flight - sitting and dining
positions, sleep comfort, sleep privacy, cabin ambience etc. The more spacious
cabin layout - combined with a top quality seat - takes SAA into this
prestigious position, and the accolade for the World's Best Business Class
Seat,” Skytrax said.
For further information please contact:
Onkgopotse JJ Tabane
SAA Vice President Communications and Government Liaison
Tel: 978-1087/3729
Fax: 083 380 6284
e-mail: tabane@flysaa.com
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