Originally Posted by
CAlex
I will be next week in Moscow and one of the colleagues there advised to definitely book 2 hours before departure, as this is a requirement for international flights.
I usually travel with only cabin luggage and take ~45 minutes before flight departure time for all required procedures at airport, or ~20-30 minutes for OLCI. Is Moscow so different that I should really plan to be in the airport 2 hours before the flight, or is it just another urban mith?
I haven't decided yet if I will fly from SVO or DEM, I guess there should be no difference between them.
SVO and DME are very different, the latter being much nicer. To be honest SVO in particular should be somewhere where you should really be there 90-120mins before the flight. While check-in may not be a problem, you can easily get held up by long queues at security and passport control. It's not as bad as it used to be, but better to err on the side of caution just in case. DME is not so bad, and depending on you carrier you might be able to check-in at Paveletsky station if you are taking the train from the city centre. You can probably get away with 45-60mins there, but I personally would not risk 23-30mins. You'll find a lot more on Moscow's airports in the Russia forum here.