After 14 years, the time has finally come to take a trip back to Moscow on the iconic Aeroflot airline that I have spent much of my childhood with flying economy class from JFK to SVO. As is the norm before any of my trips — I hit Google pretty hard looking for any reviews from the last 6 months, from people flying the same trip — and unfortunately I didn’t find much. What I did find I will list out under resources at the very bottom of this post. And that is how I find myself sitting down at 6am today to draft up my first post on Medium — outlining my experiences flying the popular SU101/SU102 route from JFK to SVO on Aeroflot Comfort Class (Premium Economy). Hopefully it helps out others flying the same route.
I will give you my honest thoughts, and comments, and things we learned along the way. What this review will not have is any common details regarding seat size, space measurements, lounge accessibility, or credit cards used. Just some good old hard facts.
Before we get too far into things here, probably the number one question that you have regarding this entire trip is going to be: is comfort class worth the additional cost? The answer is YES.
You’re going to spend 10 hours on this flight, and frankly any bit of additional comfort you can get is going to go a long way. The cost for a round trip upgrade is going to be $300 and change more than a basic economy seat. For that you get better seating, dedicated storage, priority check-in, and generally a child-free cabin. Now I know that I’m probably going to step on a few toes with that last part — but believe me the most child loving person is going to get a bit irritated after 10 hours of children running around yelling. Aeroflot economy class is always like that. It was like that 20 years ago, and it’s like that today. I don’t really blame the parents for it either — you try getting a child to sit still and be quiet for 10 hours. Aeroflot Comfort Class however is separated, and the flight attendants do a wonderful job at keeping the kids from running up and down the aisles.
The seats are a lot more comfortable than I remember economy ones being. As others have mentioned — they do not recline rather they slide down. In addition the front section raises up to provide additional leg support. Overall it was a comfortable experience for the 10 hours I spent in them.
The welcome package that you get is a nice touch also, offering you some slippers, ear plugs, hand lotion, and an eye mask.
Things We Learned Along The Way
Comfort Class passengers get to use the Sky Priority check-in lanes. This isn’t advertised anywhere, however it was confirmed on the TPG review, and something I tested out myself.
Aeroflot requires printed tickets for this route — so even if you have registered online and did a check-in online, and have the boarding pass via the app, you will still have to go to the check-in counter to have actual boarding passes issued.
Something that didn’t work for me, which did work for the TPG staff, was using Sky Priority boarding lanes as Comfort Class passengers. Boarding at JFK T1 was separated into 3 lanes — Economy/Comfort Class Passengers, Sky Priority Passengers, and Business Class Passengers. Boarding at SVO was separated into 2 lanes: Economy/Comfort Class Passengers, and Sky Priority/Business Class Passengers. On both occasions I confirmed that Comfort Class did not get to use Sky Priority boarding lanes unless they also were Delta’s Gold, Platinum or Diamond Medallion® members.
The one and only comfort class bathroom on the plane will be stocked with a toothbrush & toothpaste kit at the start of the flight. These tend to get taken by the first few users, and never seem to get restocked. As such I would recommend you get in there and grab a set for yourself. It’ll come in handy after 10 hours of coffee. The bathrooms are also equipped with some moisturizing lotion, an air freshener spray, and a grape water body spray.
The seats are a lot more comfortable than I remember economy ones being. As others have mentioned — they do not recline rather they slide down. In addition the front section raises up to provide additional leg support. Overall it was a comfortable experience for the 10 hours I spent in them.
The welcome package that you get is a nice touch also, offering you some slippers, ear plugs, hand lotion, and an eye mask.
Aeroflot uses a two-prong headphone system, which means you will either need a simple, cheap, adapter from Amazon; or use the free headphones that will be provided for you. The included headphones are not bad, and do feature a rubberized coating. This is a huge upgrade from the blue plastic headphones from previous years which would dig into your ears causing more pain than acoustic joy. If you still prefer to use your own headphones, like me, the following adapter from Amazon costs just $6.99 and comes with 2 adapters (because your significant other who said they don’t need one will need one half way through the flight): https://amzn.to/2PMjaN3
The Media/Entertainment Center has plenty of content — however it’s pretty buggy and quiet laggy — especially the touchscreen. You can view a PDF of the latest guide here — English starts on page 117. Apart from movies and shows, there is also ample music to listen to and even various magazines and newspapers that be read via a PDF viewer. There is also a games section for the younger flyers. Be warned though— the system has a tendency to occasionally reboot and interrupt whatever movie you were watching. However as someone that just downloads everything I want to watch onto my Pixelbook prior to the flight — this really didn’t affect me. I solely used the entertainment center to display the flight camera on my flight to SVO, while on the flight back my entertainment center did not work at all. The flight camera, when it works, does have some pretty amazing views.
There are plenty of outlets available in Comfort Class seats, with a USB located directly near the entertainment screen, and outlets located in between each seat.
You get 2 sources of dedicated lighting. One being a reading lamp that exists between each seat and can be adjusted to point where needed. The other is the main overhead lamp that can be activated using the remote control in your seat. By the way this remote control can be pulled out for easier use, and doubles as a gaming controller for the games built into the entertainment center.
What you don’t get is any dedicated control over the air conditioning via an overhead nozzle. As such it can get a little warm prior to takeoff. Once you reach cruising altitude however the temperature throughout the overall plane balances out comfortably.
Beer and wine is included in rather unlimited quantities — which is a plus. There are also several options for white and red wine available. No hard liquor is available.
Comfort Class gets the same food as Business Class. And that food is a significant step up from what I remember eating during the economy flights of yester-year. Granted I am sure that things have gotten better since I last flew such a lengthy international flight. Our usual flights on JetBlue to Cancun and Florida never warrant any meal service. I had a Turkey leg with parsnip, carrot and broccoli, served with cream tomato sauce; and Beef in red wine with mushrooms, carrot and bell pepper, served with meat sauce, as my second meal — both of which were delicious. You can view the menus for SU101 here, SU102 here.
If you require a vegan, kosher, or other dietary option/restriction make sure to register your flight online — you can then pre-select your dining needs.
Final Thoughts
Aeroflot Comfort Class is a worth upgrade from economy class — and really goes a long way towards making all those hours bearable. Take advantage of the Aeroflot website and mobile app to register your tickets and handle your check-in online. Granted business class looked even better — but that’s a hefty price tag.
