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Enough time in Johannesburg airport?


Tokyo Mom
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My husband and I will be traveling to Victoria Falls after our cruise (in January 19) and will need to store most of our luggage at the Johannesburg airport. There is a flight going from Cape Town to Victoria Falls with a 2 1/2 hour layover in Johannesburg - do you think that is enough time to take our luggage to be stored before boarding the plane to Victoria Falls? Thanks so much for any advice. Michelle

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There is a flight going from Cape Town to Victoria Falls with a 2 1/2 hour layover in Johannesburg - do you think that is enough time to take our luggage to be stored before boarding the plane to Victoria Falls?
Yes, it will be absolutely fine if all goes well. But you need to understand the risks.

 

The primary risk is that because your travel is not on "a flight" from Cape Town to Victoria Falls but two flights with a connection, it is theoretically possible that the first flight is so late that you don't have time to do all of this. Because this plan involves you collecting your bags at Johannesburg, after disembarking the domestic flight you have to go downstairs to baggage claim, wait for the bags, and then take them over to the storage place and spend some time "checking them in" there. So your plan is actually little different from deciding to connect between flights on two separate tickets involving baggage collection and then checking in again with the airline for the second flight. For such a plan, we would not be comfortable with 2½ hours and routinely book a longer break between flights to allow for contingencies.

 

A secondary risk is that for some reason the airline refuses to short-check your bags to Johannesburg because your ticket is for travel to Victoria Falls. That would mean that you can't store the bags in Johannesburg because they won't readily be given back to you there. I have no experience of doing this on such an itinerary, nor do I know for sure which airline(s) you've booked on. However, my guess is that this risk is slim.

 

Are you planning to fly on Sunday 20 January 2019? That's the first day after the end of your cruise that I can immediately see a ~2½-hour connection between Cape Town and Victoria Falls - although I haven't done a comprehensive search and I don't know whether you might actually be flying to Livingstone. But if you are, then you may want to think about flying Cape Town to Johannesburg the afternoon or evening before, so as to give yourself lots of margin.

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Thank you so much for your response and information. Your points are all well taken and make perfect sense. After re-reading all our info regarding our post cruise trip (which I booked months ago) - I realized that our transfers are by land and not air. So, I have contacted the organizer of that trip to confirm that since our transfers are by land - we are not restricted to the size of our luggage (as we would be on the small prop planes). I do appreciate your helpful information. Thank you!

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Can you confirm that it is possible to store luggage at Johannesburg Airport? If so, is it lockers or a luggage room? We have an overnight stop between flights and it would be great to reduce our luggage before a 20kg limit inner flight. Thank you.

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Can you confirm that it is possible to store luggage at Johannesburg Airport? If so, is it lockers or a luggage room? We have an overnight stop between flights and it would be great to reduce our luggage before a 20kg limit inner flight. Thank you.

 

Here is some info I found...

http://www.whyjoburg.com/airport-service-luggage.html

 

 

When we took the inner Africa flights we took all our luggage with us, but we had booked first class.

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Here is some info I found...

http://www.whyjoburg.com/airport-service-luggage.html

 

 

When we took the inner Africa flights we took all our luggage with us, but we had booked first class.

Thanks for the link. Do you know if it's possible for economy passengers to pay for excess baggage? Everything I've read says the limits are strictly enforced.

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Thanks for the link. Do you know if it's possible for economy passengers to pay for excess baggage? Everything I've read says the limits are strictly enforced.

 

I would guess they probably do enforce on economy, but I don't remember upgrading was all that expensive.

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Thanks for the link. Do you know if it's possible for economy passengers to pay for excess baggage? Everything I've read says the limits are strictly enforced.

 

I checked and, at least, on South African Airways, you are "allowed" one checked bag and one carry on - but you can pay for up to three checked bags. Look under "additional baggage"

 

https://www.flysaa.com/manage-fly/baggage/checked-baggage

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It's an SA flight and part of an international ticket which usually means you get the same international allowance on all flights. TA is saying 20kgs and the SA website appears to say 23. It wouldn't matter except that the flight in question in right at the end of our 6 week holiday and our luggage always seems to grow at the tail end :)

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It's an SA flight and part of an international ticket which usually means you get the same international allowance on all flights. TA is saying 20kgs and the SA website appears to say 23.
If your travel agent insists on one thing when the airline's website is saying another, it's time to get another travel agent for future flights. If nothing else, that discrepancy highlights that they are both uninformed and lazy (ie too lazy to spend two minutes looking at the airline's website to get you accurate information).

 

The SA website does mention 23 kg, but remember that the allowance is one piece (which can weigh up to 23 kg). If you bring two pieces, each weighing 10 kg, then strictly speaking you must pay for the second piece even though your total weight is less than 23 kg.

 

The rates for additional bags are clearly set out on this page. The rates are so low that it may well be worth your while to pay to fly the excess bags in order to avoid the hassle of putting them into storage and getting them out again. Depending on how many days you'd need to store them for, it could even be cheaper to pay to fly them than to store them for the relevant length of time.

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You're right. The storage fee plus worry over the safety of our luggage would be more than paying for excess. I doubt we'll be much over the weight allowance anyway. Thanks for taking the time to offer advice.

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