Utair vs Rusline vs Pobeda
 

S7 or aeroflot does not fly to EGO... and choices are uTair / Rusline and Pobeda. Wich one you would choose?

If you fly Pobeda you need to keep in mind that they have some draconian rules. You would have to pay for any hand baggage (except small laptop case),including duty-free bags. They do give you a 10KG allowance, though. They also have very strict seating rules (ie:you can not change the seat once on board,even if the a/c is empty). Also there is no catering of any sort on board:neither complimentary, nor BOB,only complimentary water.Apart from that they are a decent airline,with a brand new fleet of 738.

Otherwise,no real difference. Rusline uses regional jets,whereas Utair would assign you a 737. Neither of them are particularly good or bad in Y.

So, my feedback. I have flown pobeda and utair (rusline was 3 times more expensive, so i didn't).

In both cases, no Business class. Pobeda is a pain and cost you ton of cash if you travel with luggage, as you said : "draconian rules". My opinion : good for a cheap short trip with no luggage.

Utair : nothing bad, nothing good. ATR aircraft little bit tired. VKO airport terminal is nice but not english friendly at all, except that... not bad but nothing to say. Was ok for short flight.

If aeroflot is not operating, Utair can be a good option and VKO terminal is much faster than SVO mess.

Aeroflot starts 2 daily flights to Belgorod in June.

Thanks for the feedback! As I said, as long as you familiarise yourself with their draconian rules, you should not have problems. They give you a 10KG checked baggage allowance, so if you check your "carry on" and only carry a laptop bag with you onboard you should be fine.

excellent news for people travelling to MOW from eastern ukraine. ^

Utair is the best option out of those 3.
Pobeda charges for breathing in the airplane, meanwhile Utair is a decent airline, with nothing great, but not causing tons of headaches

I would personally not travel on anything other than SU or S7.

Unless I really REALLY need to fly on a non stop route not served by other carriers

I was sort of hoping that UTair, and also Ural Airlines, were alright because I might have to use them at some point. In fact, I suspect they are if you look at it from a statistics point of view, but the whole Russian aviation thing is not good and I too would stick to SU and S7 where possible.

SU ( Skyteam) and S7 ( Oneworld) are members of international alliances. In order to remain a member in good standing, they both have to adhere is international quality standards in order to remain members in good standing.

As I recall SU was admitted to Skyteam with the condition that they build SVO-Terminal D, and retire al lthe older Soviet aircraft, that could not meet the alliance standards. So all of them are gone, and we have SVO-Terminal D.

The other players can do what ever they want.

To be completely fair S7 track record is also far from stellar. I think they had at least 3 crashes since 2000. Admittedly 2 of those were out of their control, but accident in 2008 in Irkutsk which killed 125 people was due to pilot error and poor safety protocols onboard.
I agree Russian aviation industry is not safe but I would take a flight with even the smallest Russian carrier over ubering in Moscow.

My personal expereince with Rusline was *interesting*
My usual route is supposed to be servet by CRJs - twice (out of ~ 20 flights) I've had replacement airplanes: an AN24 and a TU134

UTair is Ok although it seems to me as if the space on their 737s is quite cramped and their safety record is spotty.

If it was up to me I'd follow the advice above: stick to S7 and SU...