At 10:07 PM, Tim said…
Ah, Aeroflot.....all the comforts of a military transport without the organisation.
Tim, would you believe it if I told you they delayed our departure for 2 1/2 hours AFTER the plane had been fully boarded? Of course you would... I then overheard a stewardess threatening a stroppy passenger with revealing to all of the other passengers that he had been the tardy one responsible for us missing our take-off slot and being delayed. Shut him up real quick.
Sitting on the tarmac, thankfully we were able to activate the seat-back ventilators (unique to the IL-86 and IL-96, as far as I've seen), although mine emitted a subtle odor of indeterminate origin which was extraordinarily foul when inhaled deeply. This photo shows the seat-back fan, as well as revealing that if you want to hang a coat on the back of the seat AND have personal ventilation, you're outta luck on this airplane:
An additional design flaw that's visible here is the placement of the seat numbers on the back of the seats - this never fails to cause mass confusion during boarding.
And a killer design flaw that's sort of visible here is the not-so-ingenious seat-back table, which folds in half when not deployed. The problem with this space-saving measure (necessary to make room for the seat-back ventilator) is that the table won't fold or unfold unless the person in front of you has their seat fully upright. So, getting ready for a meal and tidying up afterward involves manhandling your neighbor's seat forward in order to deploy or stow the troublesome table.
The above photo shows why so many things have to be on the backs of the seats on this plane - there's no overhead bin unit above the center row of seats. While this does create a rather expansive - one might even say cavernous - sense of space, it does make you wonder what the design goal was. It certainly wasn't to allow them to screen movies using a projection system, as the state-of-the-art IL-96 we were on had (as I mentioned before) nary a video monitor or projection screen in sight.
All in all, the plane we were on was definitely not worthy of its namesake, the Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov.
Then, when we arrived at Sh-2, we made it through passport control quickly, but then had to wait about 45 minutes for our luggage to come out. That is the law of Sheremetyevo arrivals - you will wait somewhere, it's just a question of where. Sheremetyevo seems to have opened a second bank of passport control windows, which is a shocking customer service improvement unless it's just something I didn't notice before, and added - gasp - SEATS in the baggage return area where the little duty-free shack used to be.
I guess they figured that most people would rather sit and cradle their head in their hands in despair while waiting for their luggage to emerge from the wall than shop for overpriced liquor and perfume. Plus, with the added passenger throughput of the new (I think) passport control windows, but no addition of new baggage carousels, all they've really done is moved the bottleneck a bit, since people get pretty backed up at the baggage claim. so there should be plenty of people waiting and looking for a seat.
OK, I've spent way too much time on this subject already, and now I must get some sleep, so the blogging on more profound topics (which you have of course come to expect in this space) will have to wait for another day.
8 comments:
yeah, this is making me really look forward to my flight into moscow on aeroflot in august....
Jane, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I've always found Aeroflot's service to points west of Russia to be on a par with most other carriers. Their (now discontinued) Moscow-DC flight used to be my favorite way of getting home (sometimes the in-flight movie even worked), and I've been very loyal about flying Aeroflot to London numerous times on business while I've been in Moscow and avoiding the more inconveniently scheduled British Airways flights that are preferred by many of my co-workers. Where are you flying from?
PS, one of the reasons not to worry is that Aeroflot does not fly its Ilyushin or Tupolev aircraft to the US or Western Europe anymore, I think because of noise and/or pollution guidelines which those aircraft do not meet. So you will be on a Boeing or an Airbus all the way to Moscow.
In fact, they bought some 20 A-319 recently, with very nice and new cabins, seats etc. They mostly fly to Europe and within Russia on the more busy directions. Much better!
States - usually DC-10 or something.
According to multitran.ru, a scrap (in the context in which I'm using it) means any of the following: клочок; кусочек; вырезка из газеты; лом; кусок; вырезка; обрывок.
I think the way I would translate it would be as "obryvki" or "kusochki."
Here's an Aeroflot story to warm your hearts!
Belligerently drunken passengers are the bane of flight attendants in Russia, but the tables were turned Monday night when drunken flight attendants attacked a passenger on an Aeroflot flight.
The "man-bites-dog" incident occurred on a flight from Moscow to the Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk, when passengers say three flight attendants, all men, got stumbling drunk and beat up a passenger who complained about poor service.
I flew Aeroflot when the Soviet Union was still fully in business, now there was a joy. And your earlier commenter is correct, international Aeroflot is pretty good. Try taking a domestic flight to a less touristy destination, then you'll be in for a real treat.
Slogans I wrote for Aeroflot:
"Death From Above"
"We're Learning to fly, and it shows."
Waiting 2 hours when the plane is boarded happened to me to - in Amsterdam. But all in all the european routes of the Flot are rather decent.
Drunken flight attendants is something very common by other carriers, especially on charter flights (and it is scary).
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