My experience with Aeroflot began six months ago due to relocation. My wife and I have flown out of FRU to/from SVO on Aeroflot seven times since then. The Airbus 319s are quite nice and new, although cramped back in Economy. No amenities to speak of, no music or movies for the 4+ hour flight. Bring your iPod! Business wasn't much better, but the seats are nice and the care package is packed.
The international flight from SVO to JFK leaves much to be desired. Each time we've been stuck on an old, rickety 767. We've yet to have a seat control panel that works, and the service on board has been poor at best. The flight is 10+ hours, they feed you during hour 1, then 8 hours of famine until the last 1.5 hours. One movie during that whole time, without sound. Four business class passengers on our last trip inbound moved from up front to back in economy to get more room (only 53 on our last flight back in cow class). Must be less than standard up there, too!
Safety issues bother me as well--I've yet to see any cabin member enforce regulations; oversize bags in empty seats, passengers at full recline during take off and landing, and the worst, passengers using cell phones and other electronics during take off and landing, passengers standing up immediately after landing.
Baggage issues plague Aeroflot; one of our friends working at the Aeroflot office in FRU told us not to check in luggage through SVO due to employees rifling through your luggage looking for goodies. We still have one bag that has never arrived since arriving last August.
Boarding has always been cattle-call. That's my pet peeve, considering on the Skyteam website priority boarding for Elite plus and Business passengers was supposed to start last July.
Although not Aeroflot's fault per se, FRU and SVO are the two worst airports I've flown to. SVO looks like a refugee camp, and the business lounge is always packed and filled with passengers' garbage. Unfortunately, all of our flights have had at least a TEN hour layover at SVO. We usually get a corner seat at the lounge and stay put til departure. Aeroflot does not offer a hotel for those kind of layovers--and if you want one, you get a Soviet era dump of a room for $300. Most telling is the large banner at the entrance to duty free: "Moscow: It's Another World".
Heh.
If you do have to fly into the CIS, our experience with Turkish Air has been much better, and IST giving you a SWEET room during your long layovers and Istanbul, with all due respect, is much more tourist friendly than Moscow.
In any case, if you have to come into Bishkek in the next six months, pm me if you need any help/advice. Heck, we can even take you out to dinner.
OT: Don't even get me started on the disaster that is the ex-Soviet Union.
