Comparing airlines SF to Moscow
 

I will be flying from San Francisco to Moscow in September and have several different options. I wondered what people's experiences were with the following airlines to russia(stopovers vary from jfk, heathrow, frankfurt, munich): areoflot, lufthansa, united

Or if you know a website that compares international service that would also be appreciated!

Thanks!

Aeroflot does not get high marks from travelers; you'd be much better of with one of the others.

I heard so many negative reviews from russians flying aeroflot... wouldn't advise. To name a few: smoking, unruly passengers, lost or stolen luggage. But they may treat americans differently, who knows!

Didn't fly to Moscow, but out of USA on Lufthansa, United (and Continental) - those are fine.

Compare service? If you post the same on the Airline forum, they can tell. Maybe flyertalk?

For coach or business class?

If in coach, I would base the decision on

1. Mileage accumulation (you would accumulate almost 15,000 miles round-trip)
2. Price
3. Schedule
4. Fewest Connections

All things being equal, on coach on SFO-MOW I would fly Delta first, then Aeroflot (their service has drastically improved, even in the last two years). For business, first choice would be Lufthansa, then BA, then Aeroflot (their new business class is quite good; most of our clients find it to be better than Delta), then Delta.

We have many clients going to Russia on Lufthansa business class as they fly to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinburg and a few other cities via their Frankfurt gateway, a one-ticket solution more attractive than using DME or SVO.

I would say, that every carrier has its pros and cons. With Aeroflot, the price is sometimes better, but as far as I know, they don't have a San Francisco - Moscow flight anymore. You have to take Alaska Airlines and change planes in Seattle... or somewhere else, I am not quite sure. Anyway, as far as I know, Aeroflot is a smoke-free carrier.

British Airways is the best in terms of food and wine on board. However, their much-praised entertainment system failed during my June flight to Moscow, which left me without any entertainment whatsoever - it was stupid of me to rely solely on the movies they promised to provide (and I am not good in sleeping on the plane). Heathrow airport sometimes has extra-long security lines and doesn't announce the gate until the very last minute.

Lufthansa is OK, but no TV in your seat, and Frankfurt terminal is definitely not a pleasant place to be. So my choice would probably be the carrier with the cheapest fare.

Marusja1 is right-no longer does Aeroflot have a flight from SFO (and hasn't for at least a year; I really missed that one).

Everyone seems to be ignoring the Northwest/KLM option. They fly through amsterdam, which is a fantastic airport and their fares were nearly the lowest around. I am going from SFO - MOW and then from St. Pete to SFO in early September for ~$1200. What really attracted me to the flight was that the total flight time was the lowest around, about 16 hours each way!

ksose, are you sure you are flying KLM and not Rossiya (code FV) LED-AMS? Normally KLM flies this route in the evening, which arrives too late for a transatlantic flight (and necessitates an overnight in Amsterdam).

I fly Rossiya often internally but am not happy with their international product; occasionally I fly KLM to Moscow but prefer the other airline I mentioned.

MDM,
We are flying Pulkovo from LED to Amsterdam, but all other flights are KLM (code 'KL', I believe).

Pulkovo is now Rossiya Airlines; they don't fly between Moscow and Amsterdam.

I flew Aeroflot a few times (last time 2 years ago) from SF to Moscow, and found that though their service was not great, it was not worse than, let's say, United. They had great price advantage then, but I am not sure how it looks now.

No more Aeroflot flights from SEA or SFO to SVO, only one from west coast is from LAX.