Aeroflot Brand | Airline Industry

Aeroflot
stalled on the runway
by Ian Cocoran
June 4, 2001 issue

Vodka-guzzling pilots who encourage their sons to fly the planes, smoke-filled cabins reeking of cigars and an oppressive selection of trolley dollies who would stand a better chance of winning a medal in the Olympic shot-put than a beauty parade are just some of the features of flying that great Russian institution called Aeroflot.

Unfortunately the home page is about as welcoming as a wet weekend in a Siberian salt mine, with basic graphics and weak technology making for a rubber-bands-and-string approach that do more than give the distinct impression that the whole thing’s been done on the cheap. Delving deeper into the website doesn’t get much better either and while most global airlines are offering real time online bookings, the best that Aeroflot can offer is an interactive flight schedule that is two-years out of date – "valid through October 24th, 1998."

In terms of site content, the About Aeroflot section is a must for poor PR and boasts such side-splitting claims as the company’s pilot training centers being equipped with "flight simulators and other high-tech equipment." Can you believe that in this digital age international pilots would actually need such things before taking responsibility for the lives of 300 people? And here I was thinking that most commercial flyboys only needed to sit a driving test first.

Aeroflot’s presence on the net is indeed a very poor attempt at restoring customer confidence and their website is unlikely to win any medals in terms of creativity and design. Perhaps then it is little surprise that over the past few years even seasoned world travelers have avoided the airline like the plague and that in backpacker circles the company even attracted a new name – Aeroflop.

Ian Cocoran is an Operations Director with one of the world's largest chemical distributors. He has an MBA in Marketing from the Buckinghamshire Business School and lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with his wife Kate and daughter Lucy.

Other articles by this author

*Due to the constantly changing environment of websites, some reviews may no longer reflect the current website for this brand.


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