youngbru

My trip went well. The biggest difficulty was that Aeroflot is unable to work with e-tickets and I was required to convert to a paper ticket before boarding. The in-flight magazine says that it is a problem with Russian aviation regulations but that new laws will go into effect soon to allow e-tickets. It probably would have been simple if I hadn't gotten to Hong Kong early. The Cathay people that support Aeroflot in HK were unable to help me other than to assure me that everything would be OK. When the Aeroflot people got there 3 hours before flight time, things went smooth enough. (other than the fact that HK airport made me check my bag as it was "too big" even though I have carried it on hundreds of times on many airlines including boarding in HK maybe a dozen times!)

It was a 767 from HK to Moscow. Boarded and departed on time. I was in Biz class. The electronic controls on my assigned seat were not working but there were plenty of empty seats so I moved to another seat. The seats reclined to "near flat" and I went to sleep soon after takeoff. The seat was really quite comfortable for sleeping - comparable to a little bit better than the NW World Business Class seats that I am used to. Since I slept the first 7 hours of the flight, I missed dinner so I cannot comment on that. But when I woke up, the FA checked on me and brought me breakfast - some sort of ground meat on rice, not really to my liking but hot. She also offered me my dinner but I declined. I worked on my computer the rest of the flight. There were USA style power plugs in the seat but they did not work. I asked about them and the FA said she would check but I never heard anything back. There was no in-seat IFE but several passengers had a portable movie player of some kind - looked like it played 8mm video tapes. Overall it was a pleasant experience. The FAs were pleasant and attentive and their English as passable.

SVO airport seemed quite dated. I had to get my SVO-VIE boarding pass at the transit desk there which was kind of a pain - probably related to the no e-ticket issue. Only one person working the transit desk when we got there but I was only 3rd person in line so not a problem for me. The line was pretty long when I left though. Duty free shopping was pretty good I thought. The First class lounge was OK - fit the general theme of the airport. Overall the airport was OK and I would not work to avoid it in the future. Don't know if there are other terminals- it seemed pretty small. Don't know what it would be like to switch terminals.

Almost missed my SVO-VIE flight as I set my watch to the wrong time zone! That was a A319. First class seats leather with fairly deep recline. Similar to CO domestic I would say. Again, FAs were attentive and polite with passable English. Breakfast was a choice between the apple Blinz? that I had (sort of a thin pancake filled with apples) or a omlette. It was typical airline food quality.

Overall my experience was quite positive. Given the fact that Aeroflot is a member of Skyteam and the flight was almost $1000 less than other alternatives, I would definitely consider Aeroflot in the future. I do hope the get the e-ticket situation worked out though. Does anyone know anything more about that?