CheVive

Bought an SVO-IST-SVO ticket leaving this Saturday AM, returning Monday early AM... I thought an SU e-ticket was the same as everywhere else -- a paperless electronic ticket.

After paying for my "e ticket" I was told that I have to collect this ticket from a physical ticket office, thereby defeating the whole point.

My question is: do I have to get the ticket from a physical location within the city, or can I simply collect it from the airport ticketing office at SVO?

I much prefer the latter because I'm in meetings all day tomorrow, but don't want to operate on the hope that things work out at the airport.

Thanks in advance.

lecter

According to the news item here, you can only get it from the city:

http://www.aeroflot.aero/eng/news.as...=712&d_no=5026

karthik

Are these legal restrictions only for tickets sold/issused in Russia? Delta said my current RTW itinerary (DL/KE/NW/AF/SU/AV) is e-ticketable EXCEPT for AV, thus it's paper ticketed. Would I have been in for a rude surprise trying to check in for BKK-SVO or transit to SVO-VIE (both SU) with an e-ticket?

lecter

I purchased a Singapore Airlines ticket online for BKK-SIN-DME and they specifically said in the confirmation e-mail that I have to physically pick up a ticket from their office here...they were actually VERY clear about that, they even called me

chalf

SU does not support e-tickets at all. My understanding is that Russian law does not permit issuance of e-tickets for sales inside Russia. DL, BA and LX (perhaps others) iI believe manage to avoid this restriction (likely by issuing e-tickets outside of Russia), but many other airlines do not issue e-tickets for itineraries origininating in, and in some cases involving, Russia.

karthik

DL specifically said they could issue me an e-ticket on SU. The only reason they did not is, as I stated, because I have Avianca segments that are not e-ticketable. I was under the impression that supporting e-ticketing and interlining was a SkyTeam requirement (so AV gets away with this in my RTW since they're just a DL partner that DL awards can use, along with AS, though I'm sure AS supports e-ticketing.) The ticket would specifically be on SU metal, although there are AF codeshare numbers on some of the flights. (Interesting side point here: according to the DL RTW desk, AF is the only SkyTeam partner they can ticket codeshares on. I have an OS-operated AF-coded VIE-CDG flight. Every other flight, even SkyTeam partners codesharing onto each other and even DL codeshares on non-DL carriers, has to be ticketed on the operating carrier.)

If my damn AUA-ATL/JFK waitlists would clear and kill the AV segments I'd find out if DL can indeed successfully e-ticket on SU. (Unlikely to happen in the next week before my SU segments though, since those flights are 2.5 months away.) So maybe they just think they can do it but actually can't! Also, I note that some SU flights (including ones I'm on now) come up as "Ticket issuance restricted" as a note when doing a search on ITA. I'm guessing that may be related to the e-ticketing issue...

woody125

I was at the SU CTO here in Novosibirsk this morning and asked this same question as I was changing some award tickets for a trip this week. She said the same thing she's said for as long I've been doing business with SU, "we don't support eletronic tickets." This office has no mention of the ST Alliance anywhere in the office other than something they whipped up on Word and printed on blue paper. Therefore, there may be more informed offices but she made it clear at least she did not support e-tickets. That much was very clear.

UA Fan

What could possibly be legally wrong with e-tickets?

chalf

My understanding is that Russian law does not provide for the validity of a contract that is entered into electronically.

The various airlines that sell e-tickets to customers located in Russia have obviously developed some work-around. While I'm not a Russian lawyer, issuing the ticket outside of Russia definitely works, and it might [and this is pure speculation] even be as simple as requiring that one of the parties be non-Russian (e.g., a foreign airline).

The Aeroflot statement linked by a prior poster indicates that the Russian legal regime is inadequate for e-tickets.

apoivre

Russian law does indeed provide for the validity of a contract that is entered into electronically. The problem with e-tickets is it is illegal for an airline that pays taxes in Russia to issue them. Or rather, there is no legal definition of just what constitutes an eticket. The new law on e-tickets is being drafted now - the Ministry of Justice just sent another draft that was submitted to them back to the Ministry of Transportation and said it needed some more work. Once the Ministry of Justice is satisfied, the law will have to be voted by the Parliament so don't hold your breath - I'll be really surprised if SU makes the 2008 deadline.

Meanwhile it remains absolutely legal to use e-tickets in Russia.