Aeroflot safe?
 

Is Aeroflot a reasonably safe airline to fly on? I am only going from Moscow to St Petersburg but I have a coworker who also writes travel reports for a newspaper that said he has been on Aeroflot flights where they do not have enough seats for paying passengers and some people have had to stand. He also reported one plane that was in such bad condition rainfall from outside was dripping in the plane. Does anyone else have similar stories with Aeroflot?

Aeroflot is safe. In the air they are fine. They fly quite a few non-Soviet aircraft and offer good service. Your friend is hearing stories of an Aeroflot that is long gone. The ticketing staff, however, (at least at SVO) seems to still be stuck in a bygone era.

Thanks for the input. I will be flying out of SVO if I choose to fly rather than take the train to St Petersburg.

Yeah, lots of stories to share like that and all of them from 1992! Things are great on SU now. Fear not and speak freely when you finish your journey about how much better things are on SU than people give them credit for. They are working very hard to improve and it really is showing. Enjoy your trip!

It's not only safe, but a much nicer flight experience than some other Western European/US carriers. I used to fly SU from SVO-JFK routinely in the early 1990s, and even then the flight attendants were a lot nicer than Delta's on the same route. Last week, I took SU in business class to/from LHR, and they beat the pants off the BA flight in every department (seat comfort, fast/friendly service, IFE, for starters). And now, finally, you can get SkyTeam miles for traveling on SU!

I totally agree. SU is not at all a bad airline in today's time. I would prefer to fly SU over many of the other Russian regional air carriers - and in my experience they were way better than Pulkova. I also agree that much of the ticketing process leaves much to be desired in terms of western ease-of-use. The last time I flew on SU I purchased tickets on the internet and then had to change them into paper tickets when I got to the airport. Had I not spoken Russian, I am not sure how well that process would have went.

While Aeroflot is generally safe, that route is served by Tupolev aircraft.... In any case, trains a great to St. Pete. You can take a painless 4 hour express or a nice overnight first class - an experience and saves on hotels that are expensive down there. Last time I took the Grand Express and that was just great. Check out the compartments on that one !

Not necessarily - there are 2 or 3 flights on an A319 every day. And the Tupolevs are no less safe, BTW.

I had two very different experiences with Aeroflot.

In spring of 2001 I flew Moscow - Murmansk in an old Tupolev. During the flight I noticed that the outer window started to freeze, then the connecting screws started to freeze and finally a nice block of ice formed on the inside of the interior window. While I was thinking whether it would be safe to use that ice for the vodka tonic the flight attendent was serving the issue resolved itself because we started to slide down the Murmansk runway sidewise ;)

In summer of 2005 I tried Aeroflot once again on the Munich - Moscow - Hong Kong route and the Shanghai - Moscow - Munich route. This time it was a great experience in top-notch Boeings with excellent service ^

For international flights Aeroflot is great but I would think twice about domestic flights. Especially since there is an excellent night-train service between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The key difference in your experience was 2001 vs 2005, not int'l vs domestic

The Tupelov aircraft are perfectly safe, and quite interesting. Also, the overnight train can turn out to be a lot more expensive unless you are willing to share your cabin with strangers. I happen to like the train, though.

but you are sharing the plane cabin with strangers, no? ;)
btw the big thing with the trains is that you can finally book the train tickets online (but still have to exchange the print out for the real ticket prior to departure)! even this was unimaginable a year ago...

and in fact indeed it makes sense to choose the a319 in the daily schedule as some of the flights used to be (and most likely still are?) operated by the partner called aeroflot-nord, which is even if under the same umbrela but still uses outdated fleet that aeroflot doesnt operate no more.

It never fails to amaze me that people are prepared to travel to Russia and to experience every other aspect of Russian life and Russian-made items, but then baulk at the aircraft and/or Aeroflot.

For what it's worth I organise trips from London to St Petersburg where I can around the odd days when the Tupolev 154 is still on the run with Rossiya (the old Pulkovo). They are great examples of engineering and just run on and on.

Regarding rain coming into the aircraft, that is just not possible as otherwise the pressurisation would not work ! Probably a reference to condensation from the air-conditioning in certain conditions of humidity. I've experienced that in several western types (interestingly never in a Russian one) and thought nothing of it.

I was recently on a Rossyia TU-134 that had an amazing amount of fog/mist shooting out of the AC vents due to humidity differences inside/outside. Nobody thought anything about it. I agree -- there is no problem with these aircraft. Fly them and enjoy a complete Russian experience!

A real classic aircraft for this is the British Aerospace 146, with the vents above the windows "steaming". I asked a couple of aircraft engineers why and was given quite contradictory answers, so I guess it's not a precise science.