Aeroflot

[jiacinto]

Does The Tupolev still fly? Also have you ever flown it? What was your experience like?

Anyone here ever fly to SVO, Moscow's Int'l Airport on Aeroflot?

[MercutioATC]

1. I can affirm that Tupolev planes are still flying. I worked one last week

Don't remember which one, specifically (I think it was a TU-334), I just remember that it's been a while since I worked one.

[jiacinto]

3. Tell us what it was like

nt

[MercutioATC]

8. Worked one (I'm an air traffic controller), not flew one.

As far as working it, it was a blip just like all the rest...

:eyes:

[Sufi Marmot]

2. Unpleasant...

I flew on Aeroflot several times back in the early 90's (during the Gorbachev era). I found it unpleasant - fairly cramped seats, rickety planes (I don't remember what kind - the flights were from Moscow to Siberia), but no major incidents, thankfully. I'm a fretful flyer in general anyway...It's my understanding that Aeroflot pilots were all former military pilots, so when they landed the plane, they didn't circle around lazily, they dropped out of the sky at what to me was an alarming rate...

-SM, who much prefers train travel...

[jiacinto]

4. I love the hammer and sickle logo

nt

[Sufi Marmot]

5. If I was travelling to Russia...

...from abroad, I'd try to find another European/North American carrier that flew to Moscow. Better yet, fly to Helsinki on Finnair and take the train to St. Petersburg, then the overnight to Moscow. It's my understanding that customs at Sheremetovo is notoriously dicey...

Also, didn't Aeroflot get broken up into a zillion different little regional airlines (with the new remaining "Aeroflot" being Russia's international carrier)? I can't imagine that any of them put a priority on safety...

-SM

[jiacinto]

7. Well

I know one of them is called Transaero.

[dofus]

11. In March of 1977 that's exactly how I got to the Soviet Union.

Finnair to Helsinki, overnight train to Leningrad. Spent several days there, then flew Aeroflot to Moscow. Creaky plane. My seat was broken. The restroom was interesting however, very spacious and actually contained a couch in an anteroom to the toilet itself. Because about half of us were Americans (the tour group I was with) the flight attendants made some effort to acknowledge their foreign guests. All in flight announcements were made in Russian and German. Upon arrival in Moscow, the f/a made a five minute speech in Russian something like: "Welcome to Shermentov airport, altitude whatever, the local time is this, the temperature a balmy whatever. Thank you for flyining Aeroflot and if in the future your travel plans call for travel within the Soviet Union, be sure to consider flying Aeroflot next time." In the middle there was a lengthy piece that may have included shopping tips, I'm not sure. Then, in German, she said "Guten tag damen und herren. Wir haven in Moscow gelandet. Alles gut. Danke" (Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We've landed in Moscow. Everything's fine. Thank you.)

[jiacinto]

12. Have you flown it since then?

nt

[WilliamPitt]

6. My favorite Aeroflot story

is from the Soviet days. Aeroflot was the only airline running in the USSR. Their slogan? "Aeroflot: You Have Made The Right Choice."

[jiacinto]

9. But weren't the only "choice"

?

[Kamika]

10. yeah

hence the joke

[JVS]

13. I suppose you could have taken the train as well

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

14. The sign in JFK got vandalized once to make that read...

Aeroflot: Have you made the right choice?

It was up a while before anyone noticed it. Picture was in the NYDN.

[BigMcLargehuge]

17. Mine comes from a Hungarian kid I went to school with

When discussing Aeroflot he quipped, "What's the fastest airline on Earth? Why, Aeroflot, of course, they can go from Budapest to Oslo in 2.2 seconds".

Oslo, apparently, is Hungarian for "millions of little pieces"

Once he explained it to me it was funny.

[northzax]

15. 1990, I flew it several times.

From Helsinki to Moscow, Leningrad to Helsinki. On the flight into Moscow, my seat back didn't work. Big deal, you say, so you couldn't recline? on a three hour trip? deal. nope, I couldn't SIT UP. I spent the entire trip alternating between working my abs to stay upright and lying in the lap of the guy behind me. Who had a great sense of humour about it (he was Russian) he said something along the lines of "if I choose between broken seat and broken engine, I choose seat." I think he was plastered.

I still have my aeroflot pilot's wings...

[jiacinto]

16. You never flew from the US to Russia with Aeroflot

over the ocean?

[northzax]

18. hell no.

Finnair from JFK to Helsinki. Frankly, over the ocean don't matter much, when a 300 seat airplane comes down, you're pretty much dead anyway, no matter what you hit. it's not like you're actually going to have to worry about drowning.


of course, the worst (and most macabrely funny) story about Aeroflot is the time in the mid-90's when a tupolev crashed into the side of a mountain in the Urals. Turns out the Pilot was letting his ten year old son fly the plane for kicks. that ain't right.

[jiacinto]

19. Well

I want to hear from someone who flew Aeroflot across the Atlantic.

[Forkboy]

20. Jeez

And I thought my father was nuts letting me drive a van at 11 :crazy: