My first post was indeed serious. There was actually a newspaper article in the Financial Times on Aeroflot introducing this program. I was just hoping someone knew more about it. A colleague is going to St. Petersburg on Aeroflot next week, and was hoping that she might be able to get some credit somehow for it.

With respect to Aeroflot's service, one must distinguish between domestic and international routes. Internationally to the US, Aeroflot flies 777 and 767 aircraft, and newer Russian aircraft to elsewhere in Europe. While all else being equal I would prefer another airline, given enough of a price differential and a convenient itinerary I would have no qualms about flying Aeroflot. Domestically within Russia, however, is an entirely different story, and I too would hesitate--but not be overly scared.

While I personally have not flown Aeroflot in 7 years (my usual route of Boston-Moscow is better served by Delta, Swissair, and Lufthansa), colleagues and others who travel frequently to Russia from New York and Chicago have reported favorably on Aeroflot's service in recent years. Their biggest complaints are that there is still a smoking section and that many of the passengers drink excessively--though I hardly think that one can blame this latter fact on the airline, having witnessed the same on many other flights on reputable airlines.

Admittedly, Aeroflot has a bad history (I too remember the near-crash landings in rickety Soviet aircraft), and Russia's financial state has done little to engender confidence, but for international routes I think one should not be too quick to write off Aeroflot. After all, it does offer non-stop service from DC, NYC, Chicago, and LA in the US to Moscow--quite useful and convenient for persons who live in those locales, as only JFK has a non-Russian airline competing with Aeroflot on a non-stop basis (Transaero, another Russian airline, formrly flew to LAX, but has been experiencing financial difficlties and may have stopped)--and Aeroflot is the only airline offering non-stop service to St. Petersburg (from JFK) from the US.

[This message has been edited by chalf (edited 03-20-99).]