Not all bad in Russia

Good to hear a story of good service and comfortable cabins Dutchyankee. I hope Russia is not too cold just now?

Got me thinking though, could Moscow/Aeroflot eventually be a threat to the ME3 as it’s on the route between Europe and the Far East?

I can imagine that SVO has improved on what it used to be, but still some way to go, I think. Terminal D is rather modern, Terminal E is adequate but Terminal F feels old and very cramped. Aeroflot is spread across all three terminals – connected by walking routes airside. Most Aeroflot destinations are served from Terminal D, but there are some notable exceptions – such as routes to the Benelux, India and China, which are from Terminal F. The Aeroflot lounges are adequate but a little underwhelming – particularly compared to the onboard experience, which is generally good.

Aeroflot are indeed offering some very good fares at the moment – though many of the best value fares – in both Economy and Business – are non-mileage earning with Skyteam partners such as Flying Blue.

I think one of the biggest obstacles to SVO seriously challenging the ME3 on Europe-Far East routes is the visa regime; even for a short stop landside a visa must be obtained in advance (with the cost and hassle that entails). For a few years, Russia has been toying with introducing a visa-free regime for short stays – similar to the very effective Chinese scheme – but no sign of this actually being implemented.

Keep warm Dutchyankee. I’m writing this in the southern hemisphere’s 26c!

Easing visa restrictions certainly helps tourist traffic. Some years ago when Switzerland was not part of Schengen, the Swiss government allowed those with Schengen visa to enter the country. Faced with having to get two visas, one for Schengen and one for Switzerland, most tourists just went fo the Schengen one, after all you can see mountains and buy cuckoo clocks in Austria as well and then go to Germany France etc!

The effect was remarkable. Switzerland was back on the tourist route again and in cities like Lugano foreign tourist business increased dramatically.

@ LuganoPirate

Agree; it’s sadly an issue Britain is still struggling with.

China’s move has also been very smart. Three years ago I was transitting PEK (en route to Japan) and I was given surveys by both Air China (on board) and Beijing airport basically asking me the same question – if I could have left the airport without a visa, would I have spent some time (and money!) in China. Armed with the results, they no doubt went to the Government higlighting the huge tourism opportunity they were missing out on. Very shortly after, in comes the visa-free regime – it seems, now expanded to 11 Chinese cities. I took advantage in Shanghai last year – and though a little slow to process on arrival, it was quite straightforward. Russia would do well to learn from Chinese pragmatism.

I have had cause to travel extensively on Aeroflot recently because of business in Central Asia – the alternative is Turkish (dire in all respects) or BA via Almaty (excellent crew, knackered 767’s and only 3x weekly). I have found Aeroflot consistently excellent in business, food of a good quality but most impressive has been the cabin crew service attitudes and SVO connection speeds. Credit where it is due; they are light years ahead of what I remember from TU144 flights a decade ago and the cabin crew are good, reasonable English even on flights to the ‘stans. At least where mid haul is involved, I rate them highly – and not as a budget option but as a high quality one. On a flight into LHR last year I stupidly lost my wallet and the stewardess got on hands and knees to find it wedged under a seat some rows away – most impressive.

Tirana1, probably the TU 154 you meant, noisy one indeed – I remember them being a common sight not just at eastern european airports but also further west when they were still allowed to land (noise restrictions).
The Technikmuseum Sinsheim / Speyer near Frankfurt has a TU 144 next to an AF Concorde. The interior of the former is somewhat less glamorous than the latter 🙂

Aviationgeek’s correction is well placed – fat thumbs on my part. Mind you, the 154 experience was pretty noisy but surprisingly comfortable – one plane had a rather impressive wood pannelling in business ! To continue the Russia theme, plane to taxi at DME this morning was 20 minutes – Moscow immigration massively quicker than LHR equivalent. BA A321 service from LHR excellent but broken seat (second in 3 weeks on BA) – you can certainly see the effect of the economic crisis here on load factors with business class only half full. Moscow hotel rates are less than half what I was paying last year and Russian colleagues are hoovering up iphones and other electronics before prices increase. If anyone wanted to visit Moscow for the ballet/museums/Kremlin etc now would be an excellent time to travel – and it is +2 celsius which is surprisingly warm for December (albeit new Russian visa regs have just kicked in so fingerprints now needed.)