Flying Kulula

16 Mar 2005

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I normally fly 1time (for non-South Africans, a budget airline here) because of the good service and good prices. Unfortunately, due to bad planning on my part (gee Neil, perhaps the tens of thousands of people coming for the Argus need to fly back to Johannesburg?) 1time wasn't an option for my latest trip. Since my finances are creaky at the moment, Kulula was the other option.

Now, I still have my return flight to go on Kulula, so perhaps they'll change my impressions. Or kill me off because of what I say now.

Service? Passable. Better than the plastic smiles one generally gets on SAA. Never flown BA, though. The hostesses seemed on auto-pilot.

On 1time, in their DC9 aircraft, they seat five people per row. Kulula's 737 seats six across, and it's a lot tighter. I suppose that's good for them in terms of making more money, but a lot less enjoyable (especially with someone with my frame).

I don't really blame Kulula for this, but I had my first missed approach on the landing to Johannesburg. Having done the approach to Johannesburg a lot (especially lately), I just got the impression we were too high (and maybe a bit too fast). Suddenly the plane angled to 45 degrees and the engines went mad trying to lift us up. It was slightly disconcerting that we spent quite some time descending before we started ascending.

Apparently the tail-wind was too strong for the aircraft to land with that approach, but we had to wait about four minutes to hear that. But we landed fine (obviously) on the other approach.

I'll prefer 1time for now, even in preference to the same price from SAA. Maybe someday someone will send me on a BA flight. And maybe a business-class flight. Just for comparison. Or perhaps I should consider that attachment is suffering, and rather remain ignorant...

5 old-style comments

  1. Fooz — March 16, 2005 at 10:33 AM.

    BA isn't that much better...if you're lucky, Kulula flights are BA-cattle-class. I've flow Kulula four times now, and only once was it on a green-cucumber plane. The other three flights were BA flights being filled up by happy Kulula patrons (free meals instead of paying for your chips), and not that unpleasant. But the seats are very small for people with our larger frames.

  2. greenman — March 16, 2005 at 10:38 PM.

    I'm not sure any are consistently better. We almost crash-landed in Jhb on an SAA flight trying the land in a thunderstorm. The plane was weaving to-and-fro, out of control, We got to about tree-height in the descent before pulling up. Bags on the floor, doggie-bags full, hysterics, and we got to circle for 20 minutes before trying again. On Kulula recentl, Anique's mom had the pleasure of the plane dropping 10 000 feet in a few seconds, oxygen masks popping out, more shrieks and hysterics, all without being told what was wrong. And then on my most recent trip to Jhb, scheduled for departure at 21h00 or so, upon checking in we were told it was delayed till 23h00. The info board then announced, at 20h50, that the flight was now leaving at 23h30. By 24h15 it was still saying this, with no announcement of any sort, and no-one to ask. Boarding finally began 24h20. A regular claimed this happens often. We got a free meal and a R250 voucher as thanks... Then SAA has messed up my veggie meal two out of three times. I've never tried 1time though.

  3. Neil Blakey-Milner — March 23, 2005 at 07:59 PM.

    Ian - thanks for reminding me. 1time has generally had something other than crisps for vegetarians to eat when I checked. Both times I was on Kulula, the options were chicken mayonaise and egg mayonaise with bacon. Which reminds me that I don't recall getting an option for vegetarian food on FlySAA for my latest flight (arg, day after Easter booked out two weeks in advance!).

  4. Alwyn — April 16, 2005 at 03:01 PM.

    Hey Kulula, Just a few words on your new paint jobs.I work at J.I.L. and see your aircraft daily.I must say they are really looking cool with their green and white livery.What I really enjoy is that each plane has a different design'pattern[?],especially the one I saw this morning with a sort of green twist around the fuselage.Looking good man keep it up. Regards, A.Visser.

  5. mduduzi Dhladhla — April 28, 2005 at 08:49 AM.

    I wan't to book a flight for two to Durban on Saturday and we will return on monday the 01-05-2005. I would be great full if you could send me the coutations via my fax: 012 421 8166 or use the above mentioned e-mail Thank You JM Dhladhla
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Hi, I'm Neil Blakey-Milner, a technology generalist most interested by open source, security, and building scalable systems (especially if I get to use the Python programming language).

I "work" at the incredibly fun web-sites-for-everyone startup SynthaSite based in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.

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