From Russia with love... A flight with Aeroflot

After a week back in the UK and after a very sad goodbye to my girlfriend, it was time to catch my flight back to Beijing. With a tight budget limiting my choice on flights, I found myself booking with Aeroflot, (I was saying Aeroflop by mistake for quite some time) a Russian airline I had hadn't heard of before. Having become good friends with a Russian back in Beijing and with plans to visit properly towards the end of the year, I was a little excited to be stopping in Moscow and being able to seeing a little of the Russian people and culture.

I have a irrational fear of missing flights and so as usual I arrived at Heathrow exceptionally early. I never mind so much as airports are an excellent place to people watch, and I spent the best part of an hour and a half watching the various nationalities pass the time before checking in and taking their flights.

After a long wait I was looking for my check in desk when I saw an air hostess that looked exactly like my friend in Beijing (tall slim and blonde), I guessed that this must be where I should check in and shortly after the Aeroflot signs appeared. After seeing this air hostess, the second Russian I have ever met in my life, I began to wonder if my stereotypical idea of big manly Russian women was all wrong. Maybe the Russian ladies are in fact all tall slim, blonde and elegant? After checking in I made my way through security (of course I set the alarm off and had to be X-rayed), found the gate and did my very best not to fall asleep. 

I have taken many flights in my life and when I could see that the gate was ready to open, I expected an announcement calling the different boarding numbers and was a little taken aback when a tired, grumpy Russian lady simply shouted 'Ready!' with an incredibly strong Russian accent. But this appeared to be all that needed to be said as everyone proceeded to board the plane. 

My heart sank a little when I boarded. Emirates it was not and I realised just how spoiled I had been in the past. The plane was far smaller than expected and had none of the usual gadgets I like when taking a long journey. The plane was something you would expect when taking a low budget flight such as Easyjet, and having paid far more than I ever would for an Easyjet flight, I was a little disappointed. The plane seemed rather rickety and I was slightly nervous when the long Russian safety talk was translated into short once sentence (heavily accented) English.

'В случае возникновения чрезвычайных ситуаций обратите внимание, что выходыслева от вас. Ремни безопасности должны носить при посадке и взлете и в том маловероятном случае возникновения чрезвычайной ситуации маски посадкивоздушных упадет с потолка над вами.'


'Please wear you seat belts.'

The flight to Moscow was 4 hours long and I managed to sleep most of the way. Having left a sunny England, I was a little unprepared for a snowy Moscow airport when we arrived and proceeded to put on all layers of clothing I had in my hand luggage. It was 2am Moscow time when I arrived and it was a 10 hour wait before my connecting flight to Bejing . Exhausted, I needed to find a safe corner to sleep in and so started to wonder round the somewhat peaceful Moscow airport. 

After half an hour of wondering I found what appeared to be the 'sleeping area' (named so simply because of the number of people there sleeping) and so took off my shoes and curled up with my bag, quickly falling into a blissful sleep.

Considering I was sleeping on an airport floor, I slept well and woke up around fours hours later. My sleeping companions long gone, I was alone and children were the only ones paying any attention to me, somewhat amused at my sleepiness. I took a wonder around the, now lively airport, admiring the different shops and becoming rather intrigued by the Russian people.

Something I did notice about Moscow airport was that it full of Russians. An obvious statement I know but having just spent a considerable amount of time watching people from all over the world in Heathrow, the lack of foreigners was quite prominent. My hopes of finding tall, slim, blonde women everywhere were also short lived, as many Russian ladies around me lived up to the stereotype (I found myself hoping I wasn't sat between some of the larger ladies!) I found my gate and curled up again for a little more sleep before boarding the long flight to Beijing.

My second flight was in a slightly larger plane and being long haul, even had a TV! However this being a Russian flight from Moscow to China, all instructions and announcements (and TV channels) were in either Russian or Mandarin and so my understanding of any important information was very limited! I was also sure that the  Russians had a their own idea of evacuation as the Russian emergency exit sign was pointing to the left and the English emergency exit was pointing to the right. These things (on now 2 of Aeroflot's flights) on top of a rickety plane (with a healthy dose of turbulence) had me question just how safe this flying malark really is. But surely, I was just being a nervous passenger, right?

I spent the long flight either sleeping or watching some Russian comedy and after 8 hours it was time to land in Beijing. Now, I wouldn't exactly call the landing 'smooth' and although nervous I at least had exceptions to land safely. However the Russian passengers didn't seem to have hopes as high mine and once safely landed a rounds of applause and cheers could be heard throughout the plane, as though this was the first time the pilot had flown (maybe it was?!). Either way I was just happy to be home at last after such a long journey.

Back in Beijing, I explained my experiences to my Russian friend and she simply laughed. As it turns out, the Russian airlines don't have the best safety record and the round of applause at landing really is because they aren't sure if they will land safely! A few days after talking with my friend, a Russian airline crashed, killing 34 passengers.

Needless to say, if I do pay a visit to Russia in the October holidays... I will be taking the train!