Archive for May, 2010

I had a ticket going from NY to Minsk, Belarus via Moscow. My infant child is a US citizen, who had a visa to Belarus. The flight was supposed to arrive in terminal F in Moscow and depart from terminal B to Minsk. The travel agency got a visa to Belarus for my infant. Nobody told me that the infant would need a visa to Russia just to travel from one terminal to another. I called Moscow airport and spoke to a Russian counsilor there. He told me that I will be able to buy a $50 visa for the baby at the airport in Moscow to get to my flight. However, I wasn’t allowed to board the flight to Moscow in NYC. I was told that the infant had to have a visa to go from one terminal to another. Aeroflot team called some guards at the border.

In addition, my tickets were not refundable.

While waiting to solve this problem, which was never solved I heard that Aeroflot charges $100 for any extra luggage starting with as little as 1 kg. Also if you are connecting to another flight in Moscow, the luggage limits are much lower for your next internal flight. And they make you pick up your luggage and transport it to another terminal in Moscow.

Another person told me that in Moscow many Russians holding dual passports get into trouble, even though the laws are vague. The funny part is that one needs to get a tax certificate from Moscow to exit Russian citizenship. It takes 3 months to get an appointment with the Consulate in NY.

The bottom line, do not fly aeroflot! Go through Vienna, Frankfurt, Warsaw instead.

I flew with them in 2001, it was dirty, smoky, with many drunk people. My fellow passenger spilled alcoholic beverages on me all the time. Without mentioning his harassing remarks to me.