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Comment by siberianbear | Hacker News Reader

I used to fly a lot when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. Air travel was always awful. I usually flew with and especially hated United Airlines, because the service was so spectacularly awful.

Then, I moved to Russia. Now, I fly on Aeroflot, S7 and Ural Airlines a lot. It's always awful. Really awful. It makes me pine for the good 'ol days when I had to fly on United. The incompetence, apathy and downright idiocy of these people who work for the Russian airline comes never ceases to shock me.

I'm so happy now when I come back to the United States and fly United. Finally, I get to fly on an airline with staff who are comparatively friendly, helpful and competent.

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Can you give a concrete example of your bad experience with Russian airlines? I'd like to share in your newfound perspective on U.S. airlines.

best I can suggest is to read some frequent flyer forum complaints about business class..

I told them a couple of times to fly in economy for a long haul flight again once or twice and you'll be back to happy with business class :-)

I've flown long distance flights quite a bit in my life, but - unfortunately - always in economy. I can only imagine what the difference must be like, but I sure know that for a tall guy for me, 10+ hours in economy class seats are no fun.

My friend flew to London from Japan with Aeroflot. It was a connection flight and he had 4 flights in total (round trip included), and 3 of 4 flights were delayed for 3+ hours each.

I also experienced a 5 hour delay. The worst thing was not the length of the delay, but how they handled it... they gave us nearly zero information and most passengers were frustrated by the "expected departure time" on the screen constantly being updated with no explanation.

The same thing happened to me in Calgary last year: what we were told after 6 hours of "boarding will start in approximately 15 minutes" was that there was a security breach at the airport where someone had accidentally left a door open, which required them to go through a long procedure of re-securing the affected areas and the aircraft. If that is true, however, they could have told everyone at the gate right from the start: look, we're really sorry, we screwed up and this is going to take a while. A long while. So why don't you make yourselves comfortable, go get some lunch or drinks and be back in six hours?

A longer delay than that happened to me at Logan (Boston). They kept saying an hour delay for over 12 hours. If they'd told me the truth, I could have gone back to the hotel and gotten some sleep. It was pretty miserable.

Some things off the top of my head:

1. Aeroflot cancels flight. I ask for a refund, they refuse. I file a chargeback with my bank. They file a false statement with the bank saying I was not present. I sent the bank a photo from the flight info display at the airport. Airflot says that I rescheduled for another day and missed THAT flight. I tell the bank that's not true and that I requested a refund. Aeroflot says my fare code can't be refunded.

2. Aeroflot delays flight 12 hours due to weather. After six hours, they decide to give everyone a certificate for a complimentary meal. The coupon they give is for so little money that it only covers a small sandwich and a bottle of water. (I compared this in my mind with a flight on Lufthansa, where after 90 minutes they gave everyone a credit for 20 Euros, and I got a decent hamburger, two pints of beer and still had a couple of euros of credit that I didn't use)

3. I'm flying through Domodedova airport in Moscow with a business class ticket on Ural airlines. I find the business class lounge, but it's actually the wrong lounge, it's the S7 lounge. The woman working there refuses to give me directions to the Ural Airlines lounge. She obviously knows where it is, she just thinks that a Ural Airlines business class passenger is entitled to less respect to some dog crap on the sole of her shoe. She just keps repeating to go to airport information.

4. I'm flying on Ural airlines business class. I arrive at the airport earlier than expected. I go to the ticket counter to get my boarding pass. I ask them to switch me to an earlier flight since I can make that flight. She says she can only print boarding passes, and directs me to the ticket sales office. I go the ticket sales office, and they tell me my fare code doesn't allow me to change my flight. But it's a full-fare business class ticket! I bought it one day before. She's insists, I give up. I get through security and go to the gate agent and ask her to allow me to change my flight. She insists that business class is full on this flight. So, I go to their web site on my laptop and find that I can actually buy a seat on that flight in business class. I show this to the gate agent. She insists that the flight is full. But it's obviously not, since the company is still selling tickets on the internet.

5. I try to buy a flight on S7 using my Chase bank (in the USA) credit card. The site chugs on my number, and then eventually tells me the bank declined the charge. But the charge still showed up on my credit card. I call S7, am on hold for 50 minutes, and at the end of it I explain the problem. They say there is no record of the charge and no flight booking. They ask for my reference number, but there isn't one because the website denied my card. I end up disputing it with the bank. I was honestly shocked with S7 didn't dispute my chargeback.

6. Ural Airlines didn't even take my foreign credit card. They said the bank denied my charge. The bank said they didn't attempt to charge it.

7. I try to book a flight on S7 using my foreign credit card. The site doesn't take it. So, I elect to just reserve the flight, and go to the S7 office to try to pay. They say that if you reserve a flight on the internet and come to an S7 office, you can't pay with a credit card. You must pay in cash. But, they'll let you make a new reservation and pay with a credit card. But it's a higher rate since it's not the internet discount. I leave the S7 office, get cash, come back and pay in cash.

At least Aeroflot's site handles USA credit cards fine.

8. I get silver status on S7 airlines from flying so much. Next time I log in, a screen pops up prompting me to give an address. I try to give it an American address, and actually there is a country selection, so in theory I could get this card. But the web site makes so many false assumptions about how a postal address looks that I can't enter my valid USA address. I try to fool it best I can and hope the post office in the USA is smart enough to figure out the mangled address. The card never arrived.

I could keep going. I'm tired of writing. I have an ongoing joke with one of my foreign friends in Russia of the form "Nobody told Aeroflot that the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and you have to please the customers now."

That's crazy. I always wondered what it would take to actually be worse than united airlines.

Unless Aeroflot became significantly worse than in 2014, this is not true.

It might not tally with your opinion but it doesnt mean its not true. I have several russian friends and all refuse to fly aeroflot based on experience, also some European friends that have some stories to tell which reflect rather poorly on aeroflot, tbf some of the stories are quite funny though, especially the back of plane vodka sharing - many economy passengers head to back of plane and share vodka neat. Even though aeroflot are cheapest between europe and se asia often I wouldnt touch them with a bargepole

I saw two guys on an S7 flight from Moscow to Irkutsk get really drunk and then start fighting (literally, like with fists). It was a bit of a culture shock.

Actually, there's some kind of law now in Russia that they only serve alcohol in business class because of these kinds of issues. It start about one or two years ago. But people still sneak it onto the plane or drink their duty-free alcohol.

They are sensitive little buggers at times, the physical version of dealing with SJWs. Had to calm things down a few times.

Even though I like a good drink the appeal of dry airlines such as saudi and gulf air has gone up in my opinion recently. No trouble and also you feel better not boozing.

I have regularly used Aeroflot from Geneva to Moscow and back — no issues at all, on the same level as other large national carriers. Business class was good, too.

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