The single most useful thing to establish before you contact an airline is which desk you need. Reservations, baggage services, customer relations and the loyalty programme are separate operations inside every carrier, and a claim sent to the wrong one is forwarded rather than actioned, adding days to it.
ContactDetails.co.za is an independent directory. What follows is the routing, the verified South African carrier numbers we hold, and the deadlines that decide whether a claim survives at all.
Which desk you actually need
| What you need | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Booking, changing or cancelling a flight | Reservations. Have the booking reference before you call, because nothing can be looked up without it. |
| A bag that did not arrive, or arrived damaged | Baggage services, and a property irregularity report raised at the airport before you left it. |
| A refund on a ticket bought through an agent | The agent, not the airline. The agency issued the ticket and holds the money, and this is the commonest reason a refund goes in circles. |
| A complaint the airline has not resolved | Customer relations, in writing, quoting the case number you were given. |
| Loyalty points and tier status | The programme’s own desk, which is separate from reservations and cannot see your booking history in the same way. |
| Something left on the aircraft | The airline. Something left in the terminal is the airport’s, which is a different organisation entirely. |
Verified South African carrier routes
These were read from each airline’s own contact page. Airlines move numbers, so confirm on the official page before relying on one at short notice.
| Route | Contact |
|---|---|
| South African Airways, reservations and disruptions | +27 11 978 1111 |
| South African Airways, baggage services | +27 11 978 3733 |
| South African Airways, Voyager | +27 11 978 1234 |
| South African Airways, customer service email | [email protected] |
| Airlink reservations support desk | 011 451 7300 |
| Airlink reservations and e-ticketing email | [email protected] |
| LIFT customer support, WhatsApp | 076 650 0972 |
| LIFT support email | [email protected] |
| South African Civil Aviation Authority, client care | 0860 267 435 |
| South African Civil Aviation Authority, client care email | [email protected] |
South African Airways answers reservations Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 19:00 and at weekends from 07:00 to 16:00. Its customer service desk answers weekdays from 08:00 to 16:30. Baggage services answers daily from 06:00 to 19:00. The Civil Aviation Authority’s call centre answers Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 17:00.
The deadlines that decide a baggage claim
These are short, they are strict, and missing one ends the claim. They come from the Montreal Convention, which governs international carriage, and most carriers apply comparable terms domestically.
| Type of claim | Time limit |
|---|---|
| Damaged baggage | 7 days from the date you received the bag |
| Delayed baggage | 21 days from the date the bag was placed at your disposal |
| Lost baggage | Generally treated as lost after 21 days, after which the claim is for loss rather than delay |
| Legal action against a carrier | 2 years from arrival, or from the date the aircraft should have arrived |
The property irregularity report is what every one of these depends on. Raise it at the baggage desk before you leave the airport. Filing it afterwards is possible at some carriers and impossible at others, and either way it weakens the claim.
What to have before you make contact
- The booking reference. Six characters, on the confirmation email and the boarding pass. Nothing is looked up without it.
- The ticket number if the query is about money, because refunds are processed against the ticket rather than the booking.
- The property irregularity report reference for anything to do with a bag.
- The flight number and date, which identify the operating carrier where a codeshare is involved.
- Receipts for anything you are claiming back. An expense without a receipt is not recoverable on any policy or under any carrier’s conditions.
Codeshare: the trap worth knowing about
A ticket sold by one airline and flown by another follows the operating carrier’s rules, not the seller’s. Baggage allowance, seat selection, meal service and disruption handling are all the operating carrier’s. The flight number on your ticket may belong to the airline that sold it, while the aircraft, the crew and the responsibility belong to somebody else.
Check the operating carrier before you travel, and note it. When a flight is disrupted, the desk that can rebook you is the operating carrier’s, and arriving at the wrong airline’s counter in a disruption costs hours you do not have.
Connections booked separately are your risk
Where every segment sits on one booking, the airline carries the responsibility for a missed connection and will normally rebook you. Where you booked the segments separately, you carry that risk yourself, and a missed second flight is simply a ticket you did not use. The saving on separate tickets is real, and so is the exposure.
Questions people actually ask
The airline cancelled my flight. What am I entitled to?
It depends on the carrier’s conditions of carriage and the route. A carrier will normally rebook you on the next available service or refund the unused portion. Reasonable expenses during a delay are recoverable on many policies and under some carriers’ conditions, against receipts. Read the conditions of carriage on the airline’s own site rather than relying on what you have heard applies elsewhere.
Can I complain to the Civil Aviation Authority about a refund?
No. The regulator oversees safety, operators, aircraft and licensed personnel. It does not adjudicate fares, refunds or baggage. A genuine safety concern about an operator is what that route is for.
My travel agent has stopped answering. What now?
Contact the airline with the ticket number and ask whether the ticket is still valid and whether the fare was paid to them. Where the agent holds the money and has failed, the practical remedies are a chargeback through your card issuer and a claim under travel insurance covering supplier failure.
Do I claim from the airline or from my travel insurance?
Lodge both, and tell each about the other. You cannot recover the same loss twice, but claims do fall between the two when neither is told there is another. Insurers routinely require you to claim from the carrier first.
The name on my ticket is spelled wrong.
Fix it before you travel. The name must match the identity document you present at check-in, and a mismatch is grounds for refusing boarding. Most carriers correct a minor spelling error; a change of passenger is a different thing and is usually not permitted at all.
Carrier routes on this page were read from each airline’s own contact page on 23 August 2026, and the Civil Aviation Authority’s routes from its own contact page on the same date.