The dreaded Aeroflot
Over the years I heard many horror stories about taking the flight to the US via Moscow/Aeroflot. In general, things seem to have improved a fair bit over the past few years, but I have always chosen to avoid it. This year, with the new and unimproved prices in Euro, I took the plunge and bought my ticket via Moscow...
Now, it was not exactly a horror story, but I will say that avoiding this option is an excellent idea, and worth spending more on. It is a looong flight from Moscow to LA, and I could not sleep for one minute, so I had plenty of time to lament the lack of a decent entertainment system. They had a few small TV screens hanging down along the middle of the plane, with - you guessed it, bad Hollywood movies, dubbed in Russian, with English subtitles. The food was, in a word, terrible, and I don't usually complain about airline food - it is what it is. They served us two meals on the flight, exactly the same, and their love of cold fish again showed through. In that looong period between meals, they were not interested in seeing passengers, talking to them, and most certainly not in helping them. You could pick up a cup of water and that was all. The airport - Sherenksdjkfshdiougf-2 or something like that, had few places to sit, nobody selling cards to access the wifi (which was free at Zvartnots in Yerevan!), and the bad food they sold was excruciatingly expensive, as was the telephone calls, which I think they overcharged me something 5x the price. Oh yes, and most of these Russians either didn't speak English, or didn't want to speak English.
On the up side homeland security was in a good mood and I whizzed through LAX with both bags in a decent time.
Now, it was not exactly a horror story, but I will say that avoiding this option is an excellent idea, and worth spending more on. It is a looong flight from Moscow to LA, and I could not sleep for one minute, so I had plenty of time to lament the lack of a decent entertainment system. They had a few small TV screens hanging down along the middle of the plane, with - you guessed it, bad Hollywood movies, dubbed in Russian, with English subtitles. The food was, in a word, terrible, and I don't usually complain about airline food - it is what it is. They served us two meals on the flight, exactly the same, and their love of cold fish again showed through. In that looong period between meals, they were not interested in seeing passengers, talking to them, and most certainly not in helping them. You could pick up a cup of water and that was all. The airport - Sherenksdjkfshdiougf-2 or something like that, had few places to sit, nobody selling cards to access the wifi (which was free at Zvartnots in Yerevan!), and the bad food they sold was excruciatingly expensive, as was the telephone calls, which I think they overcharged me something 5x the price. Oh yes, and most of these Russians either didn't speak English, or didn't want to speak English.
On the up side homeland security was in a good mood and I whizzed through LAX with both bags in a decent time.
Labels: aeroflot, airlines, flight, LAX, moscow, transit, zvartnots
posted by Raffi K. at 8:01 PM
5 Comments:
I have to agree,Aeroflot is horrible. I travelled to Moscow this summer,and then Yerevan,and from Yerevan we had a flight back to Toronto through Sheremetevo 2( that's what the airport is called). Our flight back to Toronto was a couple of hours after our arrival to Moscow,and we were laft waiting for approximately 6 hours in the airport,and as you said,not sufficient seating,and we were hungry,but htere was nothing decent and reasonably priced to eat.
Aside from the airport part, sounds a lot like my flight on Armavia. Avoid this airline too until they decide to bring it up to Western standards.
Raffi, at least you were lucky enough to get water on the plane! I kept asking for water and kept getting orange juice!
I tried telling myself the Stewards probably didn't know English, but when the grandma next to me asked for Orange Juice in English and got orange juice I realized the bastard was doing it on purpose because CLEARLY 'water please' (while pointing) sounds different than 'orange juice'.
Then at the Sheremetevo airport I asked a staff member if she spoke English and although she said "a little" after I asked her my question in English she responded in full on Russian! Seriously! Someone explain her logic to me because I'm at a loss!
On the way to Armenian I sat on the cold floor at Sheremetevo and on the way back to LA I sat on the cold staircase which was serving more as bleachers if you will with people sitting on every row.
Thank the LORD that Armenia's airport has progressed with western influences. The more Armenia and Armenians evolve and deviate away from all things Russian the better!
I found a free WiFi signal at the Moscow airport. I sat in the (smoky) cafe on the 2nd floor, plugged my laptop into the power strip that was powering the fridge for the bar, and found an open signal - no buying of a card!
Hello! i read this blog quite often and it's really interesting...Just wanted to say i had a good experience with Aeroflot! Mind you i was only flying to London from Moscow so it wasn't so far, and i speak Russian, but still. I had to buy the ticket at Sheremetyevo because Alitalia had apparently cancelled my flight at the last minute and were completely unavailable for comment or help (DO NOT EVER use Alitalia by the way, if you ever go to Italy or whatever, they seem to always cancel their flights and even Italian people try to avoid using that airline), so, because it was last minute, i could not order a vegetarian meal. The stewardesses were very kind and tried their best to find some food for me - they put a salad together by hand. When a similar situation happened to me on Air Canada once i was just told there wasn't a meal for me. There wasn't a movie because the flight wasn't that long, but i found the service fine in general.
I agree that Sheremetyevo is not a nice airport although it's worse trying to get there and back from Moscow than actually being at the airport itself, but Aeroflot really wasn't that bad.
Rhiannon in London.
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