Air Bots. connection to SAA at JNB
 

The Air Botswana flight from Maun to JNB is scheduled to arrive at 4:40. The SAA flight to Dulles departs at 6:00 and the flight to JFK at 7:00. How much time do I need to collect bags from Air Bots. and check into SAA? Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
cj

We didn't check our small duffel bags (you can only bring 12kg on safari anyway) and therefore the transfer was fast. Be sure when you go into JNB you don't get in the long "arrivals" lines straight ahead, you need to veer to the left towards "international departures". This is not very clear and alot of people make this mistake and waste a lot of time. The SAA check in line can be long and slow, so I really recommend travelling lightly so you don't need to check your bags at all.

You cannot do tis tranfer by the departure time of 6:00. I just made this trip. Although the SAA flights you speak of to the US have a separate line from other SAA internaitonal flights, you really have to allow at least two hours to make this transfer.

No expert. But I was looking at the same flights and was told by my TA that the 6p wouldn't work and that we'd have to spend the night.

I'll be taking the 7p to JFK instead, which should work.

Will Air Bots through check your bags onto SAA? That way, you don't need to go through immigration, claim and recheck your bags at JNB. You can head to intl transfer area, pick up your SAA boarding passes, go through security and head straight to your departure gate. I think this would significantly reduce your transfer time. Just make sure your show your Air Bots bag tags to the SAA transfer counter agent.

Even if you through check, I'd probably opt for the 7:00 flight in case the Air Bots flight is delayed.

I had a 7PM connection with Emirates back in June ...... no problems, had plenty of time to spare!

I have read on these forums that some travellers check in at Maun for their international connections at JNB. If this is possible (Talk to your agent/airline) then you just walk thru the transfer desk at JNB. I won't take the risk, personally ......

Hari

I'd rather have my bags delayed than miss my flight, particularly on the way home when it's filled with dirty safari clothes :D

Checking in internationally with SAA in JNB takes FOREVER and the security line is slow. I don't think that's anywhere near enough time.

We were on the Air Bots flight from Maun-JNB in September. We arrived on time at 4:40 (beware - Air Bots isn't always on time). It took one hour to get through immigration and to get our bags out of the bag claim. We easily made our Lufthansa flight at 7:30pm, however we were in business class so there wasn't a long check-in line.

Remember that after you check in for your flight, you still have to go through the security line and then the immigration line.

A 7:00pm flight is the absolute earliest that I would consider.

If you absolutely must recheck your bags at JNB, don't forget to find out what the deadline is to recheck them with SAA.

Because of a flight delay (Comair not Air Bots, but same idea), we probably would've missed AF's deadline if we had to spend an hour going through immigration and baggage claim, so we were very glad we were able to check our bags straight through.

We were on the Air Botswana flight Maun-JNb in August. Air Botswana checked our luggage through for the SAA flight to Washington DC. We did not have to handle luggage at all in JNB
and it actually arrived in Washington on time. Also, because we did not stay in South Africa we did not have to go through immigration. There was an SAA counter close to our arrival gate that we used to check in for the SAA flight. There was no line and it only took 5 minutes

Thank you all for your help and advice.
jns110 your experience with Air Botswana checking through the luggage is encouraging. We live nearer Washington and using JFK means another flight in addition. Should we gamble that Air Botswana is on time?

cj

I would never gamble on Air Botswana. We checked our bags through to SFO via JNB and LHR and they made it no problem. If you can do that, then getting through the airport using the transfer desk is a breeze, ten minutes for us.

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