Just How Bad are AEROFLOT These Days?
- I spot an Aeroflot 777. This is pretty decent. Another day, another COVID test.
Can only mean one thing. We're off somewhere again. In 1992, at the age of 11, I took my first ever commercial flight and it was part of a school exchange visit from my school in the UK across to Moscow in Russia. Now when it came to flying to Moscow, our school had a choice. they could either send us on British airways on a brand new Boeing 767, or they could send us on Aeroflot.
The Soviet airline at the time. On a combination of either an IL-86 or a Tu 154 or some other really cool Russian aircraft. Our school of course, went with the safe option and chose British airways on the Boeing 767. But I always wondered what it would have been like if my first flight would have been on an Aeroflot IL-86, what would have happened? But some, these days, the IL-86 is a long gone. The Tu-154's are long gone. And Aeroflot have somewhat of a better reputation than they had just after the fall of the Soviet Union.
So today we're gonna be taking a ride with Aeroflot onboard a Boeing triple seven, to see what they're like and just how things have come on in the last 30 or so years. God is it that long ago. Wow. And of course, Aeroflot's reputation back in the Soviet times, wasn't always the best. And we're a few years on now and hopefully I'm gonna be finding out today whether, they really have shaken off that image of the past and just what they're like to fly on in 2021. - Terminal Two departures - Aeroflot yes.
Hello. Good morning. - You're Noel Phillips? - Yeah, hi. - Hi, I watch your videos.
- Oh do you? Nice to meet you. - I watch your videos and I decided to get updates. - Perfect. Nice to meet you. Thanks. You have a good flight anyway. Nice to meet you. Cheers. More than a year since all of this mess began and terminal four is still closed, which I'm not really complaining about because terminal two is a much nicer airport to fly through.
The only issue is that lounges here, aren't that much great. If you're not with a star Alliance carrier. So today we're heading to the Plaza premium lounge which is what Aeroflot are using here in terminal 2 The Plaza Premium lounge is located at the bottom of the escalators in terminal two. Before COVID it was usually pretty quiet here but these days it's a lot busier as it's home to many of the airlines that usually operate from terminal four the lounge itself isn't too bad. It's a comfortable space and there's a good selection of food and drink.
Now as contract lounges go, the Plaza premium is okay. It's just not as good as some of the dedicated airline lounges that you'd normally get over in T4 or T3. And I hope they got that sorted soon. I mean, I've flown Emirates, first-class from Heathrow.
And we ended up here at the Plaza premium lounge which it was all right again, but it's not, it's not part of that experience that you don't really get to see when you come into a contract lounge like this, but nonetheless it's still pretty decent it's still to pretty comfortable to wait here for a couple of hours before we go and board the flight. It was time to eat my last full English breakfast and have a last swallow of some proper English sausage before two weeks in the former USSR. Alright, then time to head to the gate, were at the B gates today, terminal 2 which means we've got to go really all underground sort of conveyor belt thing and had a cross to gate B33. Interesting fact, this escalator to go under ground here is apparently I think it when it was built, it was the longest single escalator in the UK and we're on it. Once I've made it over to the B gates, I've got a view of the aircraft that will be taking me to Moscow today.
I spot an Aeroflot triple seven. You cannot deny that it's not one of the best looking planes out there that livery. Wicked, that's our ride.
Off to Moscow. My ride over to Moscow today then was this Boeing 777-300ER delivered new to Aeroflot in August, 2016, making her almost five years old. When I flew on her. Good morning. Thank you.
It was time to begin boarding and get on board. The Aeroflot 777 for my ride to Moscow. Hello - Hello - Hello - this way, please. - Aeroflot triple seven business class cabin is in this two two two conflict, very similar to a lots of other airlines on the triple seven.
The seats are completely lie flat and are actually pretty comfortable. So then onboard the Aeroflot 777 in business class and this is pretty decent. It's only a four hour flight. It's in a two two configure in business class. Lie flat beds and everything. They obviously use these aircraft on quite long haul routes as well, as well as the short three four hour flights to Europe, it's pretty decent.
We've got amenity kit and everything up here. We'll go through the amenity kit in a little bit I don't know what that is. We'll figure that out. I've got this screen. I can't see much out of the window at the minute because we sort of that last row business class where I use where the air bridge sort of buts up to it. So as soon as that goes I'll be able to see.
Controls for the seat down here. Oh yeah. Sort of literature and stuff. You can see that under there. That's pretty decent.
That's pretty decent, quite happy with this. This is not vodka just yet. It's only 11 o'clock in the morning and I need water.
So, so we're going to have a glass of water sit back and enjoy the flight to Moscow. Pretty soon the jet bridge was disconnected. And I finally got a view of that incredible GE90 engine sitting on the wing Our route today then took us east out of London to cross the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Belarus before descending down into Moscow.
Flight time today was three hours 11 minutes, cruising at 35,000 feet. So the vodka burner has liftoff and we are on our way to Moscow on the Aeroflot triple seven. So far. So good.
The seats really comfortable reclined it very slightly, just after take off. I'll try out the flatbed later on in the flight, they came around handing up menus as well, just before we took off I'm gonna have a look through that and figure out what I want to eat on the flight. So Moscow flight time today.
They reckon about, three hours, 20 minutes which isn't too bad heading east across from London of course. There was a good choice of food and drink available on today's flight. I did like that they included the nutritional information with the food. Something that you don't see very often on board flights.
There was wifi available on board but it was pretty expensive at $5 for just five megabytes or $20 for 35 megabytes. It seemed incredibly poor value for money especially compared to a lot of airlines. They give you a lot more data for less than $20.
So, I mean, it's a gift time. Let's have a look. See what goodies we get on Aeroflot. It's quite a nice bag actually has a nice pretty Aeroflot flight attendant on the front. Right.
They always have these little plastic things in them so it makes it hard to open it. Done it. What's do we have? R.O.C.S remineralizing oral care solution oh it's toothpaste then. We have lip balm, an Aeroflot shoe horn.
That's cool. Keeping that. An Aeroflot eye mask, an Aeroflot comb. It's all branded Aeroflot.
I like it. Is a toothbrush going to be branded Aeroflot lets have a look. No A non-branded toothbrush. It's a nice Aeroflot pen there. What else do we get? Hand cream Pretty nice.
I love all the branding, any airline that brands stuff like shoe horns in their amenity kit. Always a thumbs up from me. That's pretty decent that. Just waiting for the food to turn up now.
I've just ordered me lunch. As we cruise over the Netherlands heading to Moscow. Almost forgot, they left this as well. I don't know what's in here. Shall we have a look Tokyo, what is it? Slippers.
Very poor quality slippers, but hey. Very good So it's lunch time. Starter has turned up. We've got salmon today. Looks really nice.
But just let me show you this. How cool are these salt and pepper shakers? Aren't they amazing. I really like them. So yep, lets have a go. Ooh and I've got caviar. We've got salmon and caviar.
I mentioned how cool the salt and pepper shakers were to the flight attendants and they very kindly said I could keep them as a gift. If I wanted. Thumbs up for that service.
For the main course today. I took the Halibut which I have to say tasted a lot nicer than it looked. There was no denying though that the desert both looked and tasted amazing. Look at this I don't know if you can see it.
Aeroflot logo all over it Movies. What movies do we have? It appears okay. There's a few bits on there but it's mostly Russian stuff but you wouldn't really expect anything else.
Seeing as we are on the Russian national airline. So let's put this bed down a little bit. which is nice for those longer flights that you do. people ask me every time. How tall are you? How tall are you? I'm six foot four. So if I can fit in a seat then you definitely can.
And yeah, that's okay. Push that bit up a bit There we go. That's pretty comfortable. My feet are touching the ends.
It's not a massive amount of room like length wise, but again, I am six foot tall. It's pretty comfortable. Really That's pretty decent, really. I could see myself and a few hours asleep on this bed.
If we weren't going to be landing in about an hour's time pretty good Aeroflot so far, I have to say, oh being really good the cabin crew are just fantastic and friendly. I really can't believe they're letting me keep those salt and pepper shakers where are they? Just there. I can't believe they let me keep them.
The cabin crew are absolutely lovely. They can't do enough to help. The service on board has been really good and the aircraft itself is proper nice as well to ride in. It's in a 2-2-2 config. That's the only thing I would say if you take a ride on their A350, for instance they've got some single seats down each side of the plane might be a better one for a long haul flight but for a three hour flight on this triple seven, it's absolutely perfect.
You couldn't ask for anything more really, thumbs up. As we crossed Belarus into Russia it got pretty stormy outside and we got some amazing views of some huge cumulonimbus clouds as we flew around them. So we're descending down into Moscow now. The cabin crew does come around with one more gift for everybody packets of tea, show you the English side. There you go Very cool. Very nice. My flight to Moscow today cost me 781 pounds or around about 1,070 us dollars.
This works out to a price of 50 Pence per mile, which I'll be honest. I thought was pretty expensive for a three hour flight. Moscow flights always tends to be pretty pricey which I admit I don't quite understand. The flight however, was great.
And the service I thought was fantastic. Certainly much better than the reputation Aeroflot has had in years gone by. As always, I'd like to say a big thanks to my patreons. You can join them at the link on the screen now for access to my WhatsApp group, live weekly zoom calls with me and much more. It was time to head to the air side transit hotel at Sheremetyevo, my home for the night until my flight, the following morning. The Vexpress hotel is at the departure gates in the E terminal, a short walk from my arriving flight into D terminal.
It's not lavish, but it offers a bed for the nights on those long, overnight connections. Welcome then to Moscow in Russia, Sheremetyevo international airport home, of course, to Aeroflot and home to the Vosduchny Axpress hotel, Vexpress hotel which is a transit hotel here. This is what 40 quid a night gets you air side in Moscow. I've got 12 hours here now connecting overnight before my next flight somewhere else in the Aeroflot network. Where will that be? Well, you're going to have to wait until next week to find out, but make sure you hit that subscribe button because then you'll be the first to know when I released that video and find out where I'm off to next, in the meantime. Thanks so much for watching.
Take care and I'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
2021-06-29 11:25
