Mendor

They have. However some peaple (like me for example) prefer to be adressed by name rather than last name.

TelFunku

I see this in a lot of airports - transfer desks not handling cash/accepting credit cards.

patri10719

I just completed JFK-SVO-KBP in economy and I wanted to give everyone a mini review of my thoughts on Aeroflot. This was my first time flying Aeroflot.

Check-in in JFK was fine, even though Delta could not give me a boarding pass for my Aeroflot flights as I was connecting from ATL to JFK. I am a Delta Diamond, Skyteam Elite+, I was able to use the Business Class lounge. I was using points that is the reason for the strange routing. Another Skyteam failure it seems.

Lounge in JFK - It is shared with Korean, and the Korean A380 and the SVO flight I was on was leaving within 20 minutes of each other so the lounge filled up quickly.

JFK-SVO - They did allow me to pre-board with children and all elite members with my card. The A330 from what I could tell looked brand new. It had the blue leather seats. The Inflight Entertainment system was great and had lots of choices. During the first drink service, they did thank me for being a Skyteam Elite+ member.

My biggest complaint is they had only 4 people serving in coach, 2 on each side. The sequence was drink service, then waited about 20 minutes and brought out dinner. Then you waited for about another 20 minutes for them to bring coffee/tea/water after the meal. So technically there was no drink service with the meal. Then they would come clean your trays. During my first meal I drank everything and was thirsty when my dinner came around, as I assumed they would give you drinks with your food. If you wanted alcohol you have to pay for it. No water service during the flight, but they did keep juice and water as a bar in the galley.

Breakfast was about 3 hours before landing, which I found rather strange as I am used to flying across the pond with DL/AF/KL and they all serve you 1.5 hours before landing. They did serve you a hot breakfast but again there was no drink service when they gave your meals to you.

SVO - Arrival into Terminal D which was new and great. I left out of Terminal F, which was so dark, and no place to sit. At the connection desk they did print me out a lounge pass but only for the F lounge. The F lounge well it is old and not much to it at all.

SVO-KBP - For a 1.5 hour flight they did feed us just a box with apple juice and a sandwich. They did ask us when they gave us the food if we wanted coffee/tea/water.

Mandira

Thank you for sharing That pretty much sums up my experience flying them between SVO and PEK as well (except the seats; I thought all SU A330s had the same orange fabric seats ) Like you, I found it extremely annoying that drinks aren't served at the same time as the meal. Do Russians eat and drink separately or something?

Although they only advertise coffee/tea/water on the second drink round, they also have other drinks in the cart (at least juice). You will get some if you ask

Temedar

Unfortunately that's the "norm" with SU - they cut the Y cabin crew to the reqired minimum.

Usually we don't

targuitar

Thanks all for the responses.

As my trip nears, I had another quick questions that's somewhat off topic.

I will hit gold on Delta this Thursday, switching me over to SkyTeam Elite Plus, however I've noticed that the Delta welcome packages sometime take months to arrive. (My flight is in December)

Have any of you had any luck with Delta giving you some sort of temporary/provisional card to prove your status in the interim? Any thoughts on the best way to prove your membership to get access?

Thx - T.G

(PS: Looking forward to sharing my SU/SVO experience after my trip)

DrSavant

No luck with Delta on giving out temp cards - was in the same boat as you are, a few years ago, and its basically an SOL situation. If you spoke Russian, and it was in the off hours - maybe. If not - enjoy the general sitting area

An interesting tidbit on SU, is that you could get an inflight "upgrade", for some cash, up until a few years ago. I tried it on SVO-FRU and was told flat out by the purser to not try it anymore, as they are cleaning up their image, with undercover inspectors flying on many routes.

With that in mind, I'm going to do that same leg next week, with an obscure airline, as its twice cheaper and has a better schedule, so no reason to spend money on SU.

targuitar

First leg of Aeroflot flight complete (JFK - SVO).

Very smooth flight - good AVOD and courteous/respectful service. Food was decent, red/white wine at no additional cost and flight attendants served plenty of water/coffee/tea.

Only issue I will say (not directly related to the flight) is that I was unable to check in online and select a seat. I was only able to do so at the counter at JFK and although the guy told me he got me an aisle, he didn't mention that it was the last seat in that section to little to no recline

SVO is also a nice airport, plenty of options for food/beverages.

No issues getting into the Sheremetyevo Classic Lounge using Delta Gold card.

Jaenks

Recently TLL-SVO-ICN(A330 new seats) and SHA-SVO(767 old seats)-TLL all in J. I did really liked service provided by cabin crew,personal with smile. Food was very good, but I do not understand why they do not offer traditional Russian cuisine? They have plenty of choices and are a national carrier. Cons are lack of amenities in lavatory(no razors and small cups). SHA-SVO were only hand wash liquid and paper. Weirdest thing was in Jazz lounge in SVO. In the shower room they use some weird one-time towels, feels like a paper and instead of shower gel there was only a hand wash liquid. I know many Russians but never heard that they washing themselves in the shower with hand wash liquid although I´ve read that they are standing in the toilet seat by their feet. The article was recently in Finnish newspapers.

TProphet

I have had mixed experience flying from Beijing to Europe. My first experience was great: new aircraft, good food, same weirdness with the drink service (but it's manageable when you get used to it) and basically everything worked well. Totally exceeded my expectations. I also accidentally checked one of my wallets in my checked bag, thought I'd never see it again, and actually had no problem.

Last time was a pretty bad failure. I left from PEK and even though I am DL Silver Medallion SU did not honor the extra +1 bag I'm allowed to check. They did eventually let me carry it on, even though it was 19 kilos. I'm actually glad I was able to carry it on in the end, because it was stuffed full of expensive electronics and they may have gone missing overnight.

Overnight? Yes, I was stranded in Moscow with no transit visa. Our flight was 5 hours late leaving Beijing and although they had the opportunity to rebook connecting passengers for the next day, or for some other situation that would not result in us being stranded with no visa, for some reason they decided to send us to Moscow instead. I wasn't pleased with this since I had no idea what to expect when I got there. The transfer desk was total chaos, eventually they shuttled us to the airport Novotel and forced us to share rooms with strangers! With no transit visa you cannot leave the "special" transit area of the hotel, meals are served at fixed times and everywhere you are escorted by security. You're not even allowed into the hotel lobby, just a place where they essentially lock you in your room.

I got 4 hours of not very comfortable sleep, and was woken up at 4am for the first flight out to Amsterdam.

Overall: SU is OK if everything goes according to plan. If not, you're in for a scary experience in Moscow.

orbitmic

FWIW, extra luggage allowance is not an alliance benefit. Some airlines do not do it at all, others do it for their own members only, only a few extend it to each other's FFers (e.g. AF-KL-DL, etc).

KQ321

I'm confused... It wasn't in the past, but I thought as of September 2011, it was a harmonised, alliance-wide benefit : SkyTeam Aligns Extra Baggage Allowance for Elite Members (with only some minor exceptions...)

Interestingly, this benefit is not mentioned on the English version of the baggage allowance page on the Aeroflot website, although it does appear to be mentioned in the Russian version (and was in the English version in November 2011...)

targuitar

Based on my one time experience flying SU from NYC to DEL, I wouldn't place too much emphasis on the Aeroflot website - it isn't the best!

Does SU even have an English speaking customer service line? I think the only way I've manged to get in touch with them is by emailing their customer service desk.

Also - speaking of Skyteam benefits, has anyone been able to successfully board early using Sky Priority? There were no Sky Priority lanes when I was boarding though I suppose I could have tried boarding during Business Class.

patri10719

Yes you can board early, I was able to at JFK. I just had my Delta card out with my boarding pass and they boarded me with business class.

woody125

Works at LAX too. You gotta ask for it but they'll let you do it. Same at SVO too in my experience.