Today's flight report is about a flight I recently took on South African low cost airline, Flysafair, from OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg (JNB) to George (GRJ) on Christmas Day, 25 December 2025.
This was a very unexpected trip as I went to go visit a family member who lives in Mossel Bay (a coastal town located 40 minutes drive from George Airport).
I always enjoy taking early morning flights as the aircraft operating the flight is usually very clean,is one of the first flights out, so no delays and I have a whole day at my destination.
I always ensure that I am at the airport 1 hour 30 min prior to my flight's departure as one never knows what delays there will be on the freeway getting to the airport, check in systems offline or long queues at check in, long queues to go through security etc.
I arrived at OR Tambo International Airport at around 4:45am and as I had checked in online the day before my flight, I went to join the bag drop queue. Even though it was Christmas Day, there were lots of passengers checking in for their flights and there were around fifteen passengers in front of me when I joined the bag drop queue. However, there were alot of check in desks open and the queue moved pretty quickly. The check-in agent was friendly and within a few minutes, I had checked in my hold bag and received my boarding pass.
There was a long queue of passengers waiting to go through the security screening but the queue moved quickly and in no time I was past security.
The flight was boarding through gate D2 and the majority of the passengers were already in the queue waiting for boarding to start. Boarding started a few minutes before the scheduled boarding time of 5:25 am.
The Boeing 737-800 that was operating the flight was ZS-ZWX. When boarding the plane, I was greeted by the cabin crew and my seat for today was aisle seat 28C (I always choose a window seat when booking my flights as I love a window seat but as I booked this flight the day before travelling, all the window seats were taken and only aisle seats were available). The seats and aircraft cabin interior were very clean, in very good condition, well maintained and the aircraft appeared quite new.
An announcement was made to passengers to refrain from taking pictures of the crew without their permission.I've never heard of such an announcement before but the last flight I took was 5 years ago.
Boarding completed, doors closed,we pushed back and headed to the runway for departure, we took off shortly after 6am, taking off in a northerly direction over Kempton Park and making a right hand turn to travel in a Southerly direction enroute to George.
Once cruising altitude was reached, the cabin crew commenced with the buy-on-board cabin service, selling a range of sandwiches,muffins,sweet and savory snacks as well as cold and hot drinks.I bought a cheese sandwich and a hot chocolate.It was bad. The rest of the flight was uneventful.
We commenced our descent and landed at George Airport shortly after 7:40am, around 15 minutes prior to the scheduled arrival time.The landing was quite bumpy and hard.
George Airport is located in George, a town located in the Western Cape province of South Africa and is used by both residents and holidaymakers alike who are residing in/staying in the nearby towns of George, Plettenberg Bay, Sedgefield,Knysna,Mossel Bay etc.
George Airport is a very small airport, there are no airbridges or buses used here, passengers disembark their flights and walk to the baggage claim area, which only has two baggage carousels.Once one has collected their baggage, they are outside the airport terminal building within 5 mins.
Within 5 minutes, I received my bag off the carousel and went outside the airport terminal building to wait for my transport.
Boeing 737-800 at gate D2 that is operating the FA250 flight to George (GRJ)
Arrival and on the tarmac in George
