Review: Aeroflot Domestic Business Class Lounge Moscow Sheremetyevo

In this review we will transit from an international flight to a domestic flight at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport (SVO) and take a look at the Aeroflot domestic business class lounge.

Changing terminals at SVO

Once we had landed, our inbound plane from Paris was connected to an airbridge and I was one of the first to disembark. Even though I have been at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport before (on a departure to Copenhagen) it was actually my first time arriving at this airport.

To catch my onward flight to Irkutsk, I had to make way from one of the international terminals (SVO has many of them!) to the sole domestic terminal.

Russian immigration

I followed the signs for domestic transfer and after a short walk I found myself at Russian immigration. Luckily, there were no queues at passport control whatsoever. That said, not everything moves fast in Russia – and anything which has to do with government bureaucracy certainly doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong on this. I like Russia (as a tourist, not in a Donald Trump kind of way) and I like the Russian people, counting many of them as good friends. Russians might have the reputation of being stern-faced, cold people, but believe me, that is only so on the outside. Once you have befriended them, they can be the most warm and fantastic people you will meet.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t count for anyone working behind a glass window or counter of some sorts. Cashiers, ticket clerks at train stations, government officials – with very little exceptions Russians working at a counter turn into self-entitled pricks trying to make your life as miserable as possible. Compared to Russian officials, TSA agents and US Customs and Border Protection are like amicable theme park entertainers in a Mickey Mouse costume.

Passport control

Of course, my Russian boarder guard didn’t speak a word of English. He did manage to shout the word “passport” and “visa” followed by “where” (no idea if it meant from where I came from or where I was heading to). Even though my passport was brand new and didn’t have that much stamps and visas in it yet it took him ages to inspect literally every single page.

At one point he even took an old-fashioned magnifying glass to inspect it! Only after 15 minutes did he finally decide to scan my biometric passport – which somehow did not work. After ten more minutes trying to scan it and looking downright angry he started to shout “njet” and “no” to me.

Confusion

I’m not easily intimidated or scared but at this moment I really didn’t know what he meant. Did he refuse me entry? Was my passport unreadable for some reasons? Only five minutes later did the answer somewhat came when he closed down his entire passport booth! My final guess was that his scanner and computer software just malfunctioned and that he simply gave up and went home.

I asked the officer what to do, after which he shrugged his shoulders. Given that all lines were getting pretty long at this time and that I had a short layover, I politely sneaked in front of the queue at the next booth while apologising profoundly to the first persons in line. Fortunately, the lady manning this booth was a bit more welcoming! She managed to scan my passport and stamped me into Russia within a minute. Phew!

Awkward transit

I’m not sure if at that point I might have missed a turn, but as I followed the signs to domestic connections I ended up in Sheremetyevo’s landside arrival hall in international terminal D.

From there I had to take up the elevator back to departures and still walk a fair bit to the domestic part of terminal D, where I had to go through security again. To my best knowledge, there was no airside connection to make the transfer from my international to my domestic flight.

It took me more than an hour from the moment I deplaned to the moment I finally cleared security at the domestic terminal. As I still had about an hour left until the departure of my flight, I quickly headed for the domestic business class lounge for a short peak inside before boarding would start.

Domestic business lounge

My first impressions of the Aeroflot lounge were not too good. The lounge was dark and grubby, it was super crowded, and the toilets were outright disgusting and looked like they weren’t cleaned in a while. The fact that the men’s bathroom had only two toilets (of which one was broken) and just a single urinal for such a crowded lounge didn’t help either.

Whether it was waiting to use the toilet or to find a seat somewhere in the lounge, it seemed like an eternal wait! It was so crowded that a lot of people were even standing around somewhere in the lounge with a drink in their hands, waiting for a seat to become available.

Late night flights

As it was so crowded I did not manage to snap many pictures as I felt a bit uncomfortable doing so in such a crowded lounge. As Russia is such a vast country, there are lots of late night Aeroflot flights departing to destinations in the eastern extremes of Russia.

Between 10pm and 1.30am, the departure board is full of flights to all kinds of exotic destinations such as Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Tomsk or Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

The lounge did start to empty out a while later when the last series of late night flights began to board. Only at this moment did I manage to find an empty seat in the part of the lounge furthest away from the exit, which was a lot brighter than the dark area around the lounge entrance.