Has anyone ever flown them?
Any opinions?
Lot better than before and their reputation. I know people who prefer Aeroflot to BA on LDN-Moscow route.
My dad likes to tell the story of the time he flew into the Ukraine with them. On landing when they started reverse thrust, all of the unoccupied seats flopped forwards, and on at least one the back fell off completely.
I'm sure they've got much better these days 🙂
Dave
😯
They [i]were[/i] nicknamed Aeroflop for a reason....
all of the unoccupied seats flopped forwards
This wasn't mechanical failure - they were designed to fold forwards on many old Tupolevs and Ilyushins. Good if you had a spare seat in front of you because it meant you could put your feet up, but crap when landing. But in any case most of the Aeroflot fleet is now Airbus and Boeing anyway.
LON-DME was legendarily one of the worst BA routes because it's the longest flight to be treated as shorthaul (tighter seat configuration and crappier food/ife). Despite that, Aeroflot rarely had cheap flights.
Flew them to Tokyo in '98. Only one of the 4 planes had slightly 'tired looking' trim. On all the food was excellent.
couldn't be as bad as Dan air aka dan dare airlines
You want a dodgy airline try Air Belize. They told me to open a door to get a better view to take photos (unpressurised obviously). Quite a new experience to have the pilot saying "Keep your seatbelt on but get your foot on the footplate, it'll be a better photo, trust me"
Would you trust an airline that has a separate wiki page for its accidents!! lol!
They do look as though they have phased out most of the russian planes for boeing and airbus. It depends where your flying, if your going to East Asia then Ethiad and Emirates are good!
Flying back from Vietnam in the mid-90's our Tupelov stopped at some godforsaken military airfield for refueling. After 4 hours on the tarmac they admitted the navigation computer was broken and they were waiting for a new one to be sent from Moscow. They then moved us into the 'terminal' where we spent another 4 hours fueled by half a plastic cup of warm coca-cola amusing ourselves by looking at the 'duty free shop' which sold only army surplus gear (some wicked looking night vision kit).
Not done long-haul, but have done return trips to Moscow on Aeroflot in recent years.
As others have said, generally the planes are relatively new and in good condition. Moscow airports are not particularly fun places to spend time (particularly SVO which is laughably bad), so be wary of connections with long layovers. It can be a bit of a trek into Moscow as well if you fancied a spot of sightseeing whilst you were there (also needs a visa which is a bit of a faff, but not impossible to arrange).
I have twice flown with Aeroflot where members of cabin crew have reeked of alcohol. I appreciate that this kind of thing is typically laughed off as cultural, but I'd quite like my cabin crew to be on the ball in the event of an accident.
MrsHora once flew part of her journey to Belarius once with them.
I think she vividly remembers the experience to this day.
Like Mostly Balanced I flew to Japan on one late 90s. Absolutely fine tbh. Brief stopover at Moscow airport (forget which one) which was a bit of a shithole, but that's likely to have changed by now.