Question on return travel JNB to Washington
 

We booked our trip today!! 3 nights in Livingstone, 5 nights in Capetown and 4 nights in Sabi Sands! I'm now trying to coordinate our US - S Africa flights and would appreciate some guidance about flying out of Johannesburg. On our last day, our SA flight from Kruger arrives JNB at 4:05pm. For our return to the states, there is a United flight which departs JNB at 6:25. Is 2 hours and 20 minutes enough time between flights? I'm not sure how big JNB is, or how much time it takes to get through departure/security etc. Also, the United flight has a 1 hour stop in Dakar, Senegal. Does anyone have any experience flying through there? We likely wouldn't even get off of the plane, but curious if that airport has a rep for delays of any kind? Thanks for your help!
Ellie

JNB is a modern airport, very nice and large. No way to know if 2:20 is long enough, depends on if your incoming flight is on time (if so, I would say yes for sure), but there is no way to know if it will be.... Would certainly avoid stopping in Dakar if you can.

hi

i thought saa flies directs from jnb to dulles? why not look into that flight?

kerikeri :)

This past summer, we flew home from Joburg to Washington-Dulles via saa.Our 1 hour stop in Dakar ended up as a two hour stop and consequently,we missed our flight from Washington to L.A.We were placed aboard the next flight. I hope this helps and have a wonderful trip.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I think we'll look at other options, fortunately there are some reasonable alternatives. Keri, direct isn't always non-stop. Some of the direct flights stop in Cape Verde or Senegal - for refueling I think. Since our connection at Dulles is also a bit tight, I was concerned about delays, like mflicker mentioned.
Regards

The United flight to Dulles is a codeshare operated by SAA.

The flights all stop to refuel, they can't carry enough when leaving high altitude JNB.

That United flight is a code share, it's SAA metal.

We made the connection (with lots of time to spare), arriving JNB from Kruger/Nelspruit at 6pm for an 8pm departure to the States. A short walk from domestic to internation, bags weighted, searched, checkin, security and on our way to gate.

We also connect back from JBN to Dulles with a short connection. Anybody else every had a problem with the refueling in Dakar? Or was this a rare occurance?

We flew SAA from JFK to Johannesburg with a refueling stop in Dakar. When we arrived, the pilot announced that there was not enough fuel at the airport and it would have to be brought in. Our "1 hour" refueling stop turned into 3 hours on the ground, causing us to miss our connecting flight from JNB to Capetown. On our return flight from JNB to JFK, the Dakar stop was uneventful and we were on the ground for only 1 hour.

i had no idea. thanks for telling me about that saa thing, i just assumed it was without refueling, as i have flown a lot of longer hauls that don;t refuel.

loike asia and australia you don;t refuel and you can go 15 hours to hong kong or sydney from west coast us...why is there a need if anyone knows?

thanks.
kerikeri

Believe leaving out of JNB it has something to do with the altitude at which JNB is situated necessitating refueling. Not the fact that it's long haul. On the way out from the States, most of the flights (except for one or two, on specific days of week) are non-stop. There was a thread about this back maybe 2/yrs ago.

The first time I flew Atlanta to Johannesburg (June 2002) it was nonstop. We didn't stop for refueling. I believe it was 16 hours going east and 17 hours going west (extra hour for wind). All the flights since then have had a fuel stop. I've heard the plane is too heavy to take off when it's full of fuel in ATL in the summer. Don't know for sure.

We have also had a delay on the ground in Dakar. Once they were practicing military maneuvers and we couldn't get to the terminal. Or that was the story. I don't remember ever being delayed when SAA was partners with Delta and the stop was in Sal.

The SAA flight from Dulles to JNB will be non-stop in January, and in May the JFK-JNB flights on SAA will also be non-stop. The Delta flights will continue to stop in Dakar.

thanks for explaining!

I have also flown before non-stop from ATL to JNB but that was a few years ago now.

The re-fueling, from what we we were told by one of the flight attendants,
is because the fuel expands in the heat so they have to leave room for it to expand and can't fill it all the way up during certain times of the year, hence the stop to refuel. I don't know if they do it all the time now as a a regular precaution.

Our delay was on an outgoing flight from JFK to JNB. When we stopped to refuel in Dakar, upon take-off from there, a bird flew into one of the engines and we had to come to a screaching halt at the end of the runway.
Well, the engine was completely destroyed (musta been a big bird!) so our delay ended up being a 30-hour delay due to replacing the entire engine.
Lots of unhappy people but what can you do. We did lose a night on what was a short safari to begin with but better safe than sorry, I guess.