Ticket was for LHR-MOS return

Sorry, I put PEE, and that is incorrect....

Thats why you are getting a different price to the one which I paid, just re-read the thread and realised my error...

Goes to show the excellent service provided by Aeroflot.......

I flew Aeroflot at least a coupls of dozen times between 76 and 88, (1976/88 that is), and again, never had any real problems, quiet the opposit in fact, during the soviet era, I was treated like a king on all of my FSU travels.....

I must admit that the first time that I set foot on Russian soil was mid 2007 so hence you have more than ten years more Russian experience than I do.
I therefore your knowledge of Aeroflot in the days of the Soviet Union, your statement though just makes me wonder even more where and how did the staff develop the attitude that I (and many others) experience, an attitude that I can only liken to what I would imagine was the attitude of the guards in the Siberian gulags, I will just add here that I have also flown in Russia on Transaero and the attitude of the Transaero staff is very different to the attitude of the rude attendants with winged hammer and sickle on their jacket.

You will have to trust me when I say that the change of Aeroflot to Aeroflop is not not my invention.

Mel

With due respect Sabre Virtually There, is not a reservation system to book your flights.

It only offers you the facility to view and print your itinerary, as I use it also but you have to make the reservation first on the Airline’s system and get the PNR (Res. Code) before you can view and print your itinerary.

I re-iterate my original comment that the price you are quoting is only the Ticket and does not include the Airport Taxes, which of course add another 6170 Rubbles , as Raffi posted.

I thought I will try and be more smart than Raff,i so I went to the Special offers and checked the available offers and the LON/SVO/LON costs including Airport taxes 239.48 Euro.

Then checked SVO/PEE/SVO (same dates as Raffi) and cost is 160.40 EURO, which gives a Grand TOTAL = 399.88 = 16440 Rubbles. More expensive from Raffi’s quotation.

Then I tried again Raffi’s itinerary and I got it cheaper 15580 Rubbles (Maybe currency difference now). As you can see there is a big difference, nearly 5000 Rubbles from the price you quote.

The only way for you to pay less it would be that you redeemed some Miles and saved the London /Moscow/London ticket fare, Paid in Full the Moscow/PEE/Moscow ticket but you had to pay the taxes for the London leg…….which after the calculations make a difference of £116. That the only possibility I can see otherwise I do not agree with the Price you state.

Aeroflot needs the slots where, Inside Russia or abroad?

In Russia they don’t need any slots, as their airports are not running in full capacity and from what I have seen in SVO……….. the number of arrivals and departures is nearly every 30 minutes apart, last time I was sitting and watching the runway drinking. I don’t think their traffic has increased that much since I was there last!

Wet Leasing with time charter payments is nothing new and that is the easiest way to start an airline or for the airlines to replace their old planes. Russian Airlines, I have told you had to change their old Topolevs and Illusins because they could not licence them in Europe and the USA.

Well as about the ground staff… let’s agree to disagree as probably my face brings out on them the worst of their behaviour!

At the time I wished him well….. but never heard anything else after that!.

I am going to ask Malc to come over to keep you company and have debates with me!


KD AVIA

The flying and Pricing Model of KD Avia was very good and it would have succeeded in the long term if there were no Visa restrictions and also their Government would not have taken the decision to allow Aeroflop to become a monopoly and slowly take it back in state control. I do not think that Aeroflot was publicly quoted anywhere but I will be stand corrected if they did.

Since the demise of KD Avia Aeroflop’s prices have rocketed and it’s going to get worse, in my view.

Did you tried to get rich too by investing in them?

Now we are talking old boy BUT you still paid a lot more than I can get it for!




Let me let you to a little secret:

I know a little birt who has access to their reservations system and before changing the website, I was advised which dates and flights to chase for the cheapest ticket and when to do it! Aeroflop earlier was using the same model as BA and Easy Jet in pricing....... so when Russia was asleep and also Europe ..... the prices used to go dow at around 11 PM here and that was the time I was getting return flights to Ufa for 180 - 219 GBP, including taxes. I am sure you have heard about Q and L, these are promotional fares ... no more than 10 seats on each flight to comply with IATA rules......but I always had the Best sitting on Aeroflop and sometimes.... subject to availiabilty I was upgrated......

Now Mr Shadow I never had to request a business coupon.... ALWAYS has been given to me by the staff without asking and you understand why! I hope I will not get into hot waters with her indoors reading this.........so I will delete this little info after 24 hours!

Sabre still lives ? I have a certificate somewhere when I got the training to use their reservation system for booking.. 20 years ago

It was not by aeroflot, but the most luggage I got away with without paying was 60KG extra luggage when traveling alone.
Here is the story:
I was attending a fair with my company, but because of meetings I was flying back alone. At the day I arrived at the airport with all bags of samples... 80Kg in total. I knew that this would be paid, and had no problems as the company would cover it anyway.
When arriving at the desk I gave my ticket, put the luggage and played the innocent foreigner. The desk clerk stood up and wen to her colleague. They discussed that I had so much weight, but by coincidence on the flight there all luggage stickers were on my ticket. Seeing that I seemed to have taken all the luggage without payment once, they decided they did not was any discussion or trouble.... and checked in the luggage for free.

On my flight to Moscow a passenger was carrying in his travelling bag a little dog and took it on board with the permission of the supervisor.

I also noticed that every Russian is carrying his big bag on board now and if you are late no space for your carrier bag.......The food was a joke and the most important they have changed Uniform.....coppied badly the Virgin one and look like ice cream sales people. I got a photo and will try to post it here.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrbDMau_m9o[/video]

Google translation with photos
http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... 26prmd%3Dv