Part 23: Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) in Aeroflot business class
SU2462 (booked as AF4855)- Airbus A319 - Seat 3F
STD 13:05pm - STA 15:00pm (flight time 2h55m)

Priority boarding was again strictly enforced and I was the first to walk on board. The Airbus A319 was the same as I flew a week earlier from Paris to Moscow – and unlike the B737 it did not have in-seat monitors.

The load seemed again to be relatively light, with economy perhaps being two thirds booked while there were only three or four other passengers in business class. As soon as I took my seat, a friendly FA introduced herself to me and handed me today's menu and drink lists, as well as offering a PDB. Naturally, I went for the champagne. I won't post the drinks list and seat pictures again (see the link above to my CDG-SVO flight as it's all the same) but only the new food menu.


Ayala champagne as PDB


Today's lunch menu

Some good plane spotting opportunities again from the window at SVO. As I wrote before, I always prefer the window seat as I just love the beauty of the earth and quirky plane views at airports. Given the light load on this flight I again lucked out by having nobody seated next to me.







Take-off was smooth and before I knew it we were above the clouds. Today's flight time would only be two hours and 55 minutes, so I'd better make use of the time as it would be my (so far) last opportunity to try out the Aeroflot delights. Mind you, I am a person who flew economy for most of my life and only recently (mostly due to meticulous planning, spontaneous adventures and FF knowledge) have the opportunity to try out premium cabins more and more. I guess plenty of us here at Flyertalk know the feeling of overindulging and amazement I am describing here :-)





Once we reached cruising altitude the friendly and pro-active crew distributed tablets and headphones. I was a bit surprised by this as we didn't get them on my inbound CDG-SVO flight. I do really like the Aeroflot soft product, but this was again a reminder that at times the service is a bit inconsistent and there is room for further streamlining. The quality of the headphones was certainly acceptable however. And while nowhere near exhaustive, there was sufficient interesting stuff to watch on the tablets (although I did miss the airshow being a geography freak! I just love to see where exactly we are flying..)





After distributing the headphones and tablets the crew came to ask if I would like another drink, while asking as well what my dining preferences are. Having sampled the excellent baked beef starter and pastrami beef main on my SVO-IKT flight, and not finding the baked carrots dish anywhere near appealing at all, I wanted to try out the trout gravlax as starter and fried salmon as a main. Unfortunately, all other passengers apparently thought likewise and as I was the last passenger served in business class was told that they ran out of those dishes.

I therefore had no other option than ordering the baked beef as a starter and pastrami beef as main again – although I knew that at least both dishes would be good quality. One for the category 'First World Problems', I assume..

I had another glass of Ayala, which was served with a bowl of nuts. After my freezing Siberian adventure I only found it natural to re-watch the three latest Game of Thrones episodes which were loaded on the tablets.


Nothing beats an expedition beyond the wall when drinking champagne


Baked beaf and white bean hummus starter – still as good as it was on the SVO-IKT flight. The bread from the bread basket was tasty too!

Before my main arrived, I rang the call button to make sure I would have a red wine for my main course. Having tasted both reds on my previous flight, I found the Italian red slightly better (and mostly more suitable for high altitude plane environs) than the Bordeaux one.



Fortunately, the beef pastrami was indeed as good as I remembered it was from the SVO-IKT flight, although this time it was slightly less succulent.


Beef pastrami with cabbage stew, served with Port wine Jus sauce

After dinner, vanilla ice cream with chocolate flakes was served. It was simple, but it being ice cream of course tasty enough.



After clearing my table, the friendly FA asked if would like to have some coffee or tea. Naturally, I couldn't resist a coffee and a cognac, which was again served with a nice Aeroflot-branded chocolate.





When clearing the plates, the FA was surprised when I only asked for some water and if I did not want some more alcohol. It being my last Aeroflot flight of the trip and flying to France, I thought that another glass of champagne wouldn't do harm at all. Somehow the FA could read my mind as just like during my last flight, the entire bottle was just given to me and left at my seat. Not complaining here :-)



Starting to enjoy my flight quite a bit more, I also decided I should have a G&T when the FA asked if I would like a last drink before the final approach into Paris.


King in the North!


I definitely can get used to flights like this!

The descent into Paris was fairly choppy due to the bad weather. Not much of views at all due to the clouds.







After what seemed again to be some eternal taxiing across CDG, we arrived at a gate at terminal 2C next to an Atlasglobal Airbus, which interestingly could also be booked to Istanbul on the same “flash sale” ticket as I was travelling on as an Air France codeshare.

In short: Having sampled Aeroflot's business class product on four flights, I can only say that it was a very pleasant surprise. Proper short/medium haul business class seats, a great soft product, and an eager-to-please crew on most of my flights. Compared to probably all European competitors except for Turkish and Air Serbia, I can't name an airline which can offer the same.

The only negatives I have to mention that the service can get streamlined a bit more and is not of the same professional standard as one would find at Qatar Airways (although the crews were always friendly). My main complaints (non-distributed tablets/headphones on my first flight out of four, and a not-so-clean flight at one of the domestic sectors) are however relatively minor.

The biggest improvement Aeroflot can make is at its Moscow hub as I think the lounges are subpar compared to (most) of its rivals, or at the very least is nowhere near as good enough as the on-board product. A shame, as otherwise Sheremetyevo isn't a bad airport at all to transfer.

Overall I cannot recommend Aeroflot enough for such short to mid-haul flight in Europe and the Near East – I had a blast.

Next up: Flying from Paris CDG to Bucharest OTP with TAROM (RO) in business class.