I've recently had the exciting adventure of taking a 15-hour flight on Ural airlines. You'd think 15 hours is enough to get from Australia to either Asia or the West Coast, but no, all I was doing was crossing Russia, from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Moscow.

The ticket was purchased for me by a friend because tickets within Russia are difficult to buy from the U.S. She did ask, however, whether we had a direct flight; we were told we had a direct flight to Yekaterinburg, where we would transfer to another direct flight to Moscow. In reality, the "direct" flight to Yekaterinburg had two stops, in Irkutsk and Vladivostok. They still insisted it was a direct flight because it was the same plane, even though they made us get off the plane each time, then get back on it about an hour later, making a 9-hour trip take 15 hours. This is absolutely absurd, and also the first time I've encountered something like this in many decades of flying. Although I did notice an advertisement in the airport for "direct" flights to Japan and Korea "through" Vladivostok, so it seems to be a trend that Russian airlines are doing.

Is this as bizarre as it seems to me? Has anyone else run into this kind of thing? Is this a new trend of airlines in a particular area of the world? Should I complain about the deceptive practices of the agent who sold us the ticket?

(I"m not even going to get into the literally drunk, swearing people sitting behind us when they literally announced "no drinking is allowed onboard except what we serve"). Seriously, this was the most bizarre experience ever.

But hey, if mileage running were still a thing and everything weren't revenue based, this would absolutely give you your money's worth, heh.