Review: Kulula’s 737 Economy Class From Johannesburg to Cape Town
South America/Africa/Europe Review Series:
- United Polaris 767-300 New Polaris Washington to Sao Paulo
- South African Airways A330-200 Business Class Sao Paulo to Johannesburg
- Kulula Boeing 737-800 Economy Class Johannesburg to Cape Town
- Air Namibia Airbus A319 Economy Class Cape Town to Windhoek via Walvis Bay
- South African Airways Airbus A320 Economy Class Windhoek to Johannesburg
- South African Airways Airbus A330-300 Business Class Johannesburg to Accra
- KLM Boeing 777-300ER Economy Comfort Accra to Amsterdam
- Aer Lingus Airbus A330-200 Business Class Dublin to Washington
The Flight At A Glance:
| Aircraft: | Boeing 737-800 |
| Origin: | Johannesburg O.R. Tambo International Airport |
| Destination: | Cape Town International |
| Flight Time: | 2h |
| Date: | June 25, 2019 |
| Class of Service: | Economy Class |
| Airline: | Kulula (a subsidiary of Comair) |
| Flight Rating | 63/100 |
| Flight Number: | MN111 |
| Seat Number: | 12F |
| Time of Departure: | 10:00 AM SAST |
| Time of Arrival: | 12:10 AM SAST |
| Departure Terminal: | Terminal C |
| Aircraft Tail Number: | ZS-ZWQ |
What Even Is Kulula?
Firstly, the reason why we booked Kulula was actually three reasons. First, (and most importantly), it was the cheapest option. One-way tickets per person only costed a bit above $50, and extra legroom only cost $5. If you compare that to South African on that route, which cost above $120 not even for a seat with extra legroom, the choice was easy. Secondly, I love the green livery. I mean, have you ever seen another neon green plane in the entire world? Thirdly, after searching the entire internet, I couldn’t find a single Kulula review (besides a couple of takeoff and landing videos on YouTube)! Well, I guess I will be the first to ever review a Kulula flight.
Some of you (especially my American audience) may be wondering: “What in the world is Kulula?” Kulula is a South African low-cost airline which is a subsidiary of Comair (not the former American regional airline though). You may be asking yourself now: “What is Comair?” Well, Comair is a regional South African airline (it was founded in 1943) that is owned partially by British Airways and is actually just a franchise of British Airways, meaning that it shares the same livery as them and all flights on Comair are branded as British Airways flights. So in a sense, Kulula is partially owned by British Airways.
Pre-Flight
We arrived at the airport about 2.5 hours before the scheduled departure time at about 7:30am from the airport hotel. I had already checked in online the day before (I didn’t know that was possible with Kulula). I then had to drop my bag at the check-in counter. I had purchased QJump at booking (which was also very cheap), which gave me priority check-in (and bag-drop) and priority boarding. There was no line for the bag-drop, and it took about 5 minutes to drop off the bag. I then went through security; the domestic security line was very short and took only another five minutes to get through. However, it was past the first morning rush of flights, so I would image that at other times, security would take longer.
Afterwords, we headed to a restaurant and had breakfast, as Kulula doesn’t serve free meals onboard. There are two sections on the upper level of the domestic terminal: Terminal D and Terminal C. Terminal D was the much larger area which was much more modern than Terminal C and had many restaurants and shops. After eating breakfast there, I went to the terminal where my flight was departing from, Terminal C. In Terminal C, you could see some exotic planes (for a US-based flyer), most prominently Flysafair (pronounced Fly-SA-Fair).
In one word, Terminal C was dismal. It was outdated, it had tiny windows through which you couldn’t really see outside as they were extremely deep. It just felt as though the terminal wasn’t being well maintained (although for African standards, it was probably pretty good still) and was very outdated. There was some confusion as to what gate our flight was departing at as the walkway to get to the jetways are really long, so the plane that looks as if it’s at your gate is actually at the gate next door.
Another thing about Terminal C is that since it is right next to the international terminal, some gates can be used as both domestic and international. There were multiple slide-out barriers at the end of the terminal that could be brought out to signify the end of the domestic or international section. One thing that I thought interesting (as a consequence of that) was that gate C10 had two signs to it: one which said C10 and from the other side it said A0, for when it is used as an international gate.
At about 9:30am, boarding was called. Since we purchased QJump, we were first to board. The whole boarding process seemed to be a bit disorganized since the gate area was really small and the areas where you should wait in line weren’t really well marked. I had to walk down a long corridor sloping down to the left which brought me to the jetway and to the
The Flight:
I entered the aircraft and was warmly welcomed by the flight attendants (meaning that they checked my boarding pass). Going into the flight, I had absolutely no idea what the cabin would be like, and it was pretty…outdated. The seats were extremely old and there was no form of in-flight entertainment. The cabin was very worn and clearly has seen much better days. Usually, an old cabin means that the seats are more comfortable than modern slimline seats, although this was not the case here. The seats felt hard as a rock and honestly didn’t feel any more comfortable than some of the hardest slimline seats. So basically, the cabin was the worst possible option: outdated seats that don’t have the bonus that most older seats have: comfort.
Additionally, the legroom looked pretty miserable for regular seats, although we’d purchased extra legroom seats, which were actually pretty good. Kulula markets their extra legroom section as “Stretch Zone,” which is a name I’ve never heard any other airline use for an extra legroom section of economy class. I have to say: for five dollars getting a solid three or four inches more of legroom really is a fantastic deal for a two-hour flight. On United or American, it would at least cost thirty dollars to get Economy Plus on a flight that length. Another thing that I found weird was that Kulula put their extra legroom seats in front of the exit rows, instead of at the front of the aircraft.
At about 9:55am, the flight was fully boarded. We then pushed back and the captain said that we would have a flight time of approximately two hours. We then began a short and uneventful taxi to runway 03L, where there was no wait for takeoff. We passed some interesting aircraft en-route to the runway, including an Airline E190, a Mango (yes, that’s an airline – it’s the low-cost subsidiary of South African that competes with Kulula) Boeing 737-800, and an unmarked Boeing 737-400 (after doing some digging, I found that it operates for Comair).
At that point, the crew came around with the food and beverage cart, and the captain came on again saying that it would be a smooth flight. I didn’t order anything from the menu except a water bottle. Kulula had a pretty large menu to order from off of their buy onboard menu, including sandwiches, drinks, and smaller snacks such as candy bars. Like most low-cost carriers, Kulula charges for everything off of the menu, including water and all non-alcoholic drinks, which are free on airlines such as United.
After the meal and beverage service was finished, I visited the lavatory, which was clearly showing the aircraft’s old age, although it still was moderately clean.
At that point, we had about a bit over an hour left to Cape Town. The flight was pretty boring though, as there wasn’t any entertainment of any kind – no personal device entertainment or even overhead screens that showed the airshow. However, I did enjoy the views overlooking the beautiful landscapes of South Africa.
Besides that, there really wasn’t much to say about the flight. It was smooth the entire flight and the flight itself was pretty typical for ultra-low-cost airlines. We then were soon approaching Cape Town. I love how in most African Airlines, the captain comes on the PA and says “Cabin crew, ten minutes until landing.” I loved both how it let me know exactly when we would land, and I also joked that it quite clearly gave the flight attendants a “hard deadline.” We flew over the suburbs of Cape Town and then got a fantastic view of Table Mountain, and did a quick last-minute turn to line up with the runway for an extremely smooth and early landing at exactly noon.
We taxied to our gate at the domestic terminal. Luckily, we were able to get a gate at the terminal instead of having to disembark by stairs. I usually don’t mind embarking via stairs, but when you land at an airport, you just want to get out, and (usually, unless you park at a far away or an obscure concourse without a tram system where it takes 15 minutes to walk to the baggage claim), having to disembark by stairs and taking a bus takes a much longer time. When we parked at the gate, it took a few minutes to disembark because apparently, the ground staff wasn’t completely ready. Passengers de-boarded via both the jetbridge and stairs at the back of the aircraft to make for a more efficient disembarkation process.
Conclusion
The flight went pretty much exactly as I expected it to go. The staff was friendly enough, the flight was on-time, and the experience was bear bones, with no entertainment and hard seats. However, it did come at the right price, with the ticket being very inexpensive, and
Have you ever flown on Kulula? How did your experience compare to mine?