I have always maintained that South Africans and SA media is overly critical of SAA. Yes, it is not as good Emirates or Singapore Airlines; and its financial management has hardly been stellar - but its service is good and usually on time. In the 2014 Skytrax awards, SAA was ranked 11th in the world - better than Turkish (crap in my experience), Cathay Pacific and Etihad. And the airlines often mentioned as better than SAA - British Airways and Air France - do not even feature.
