We got up around 5:50am to get ready for our first flight to Helsinki. The hotel had a free breakfast which turned out to be quite good. They even had made to order omelettes.
We caught the 7:15am shuttle to Terminal D at Sheremetyevo Airport. It only took 10 minutes to get there.
The check in kiosks didn’t recognize my Finnair booking number so we had to wait in line at the regular check in desks. We waited about 25 min for our turn and got our boarding passes.
Passport control was next. We only had to wait 10 minutes or so. No questions asked again. Just a couple swipes of the passport and visa, a stamp and we were done. And as luck would have it, they didn’t even bother with our registration paper. They didn’t even open it. I’m still glad we did it though. I’d rather have it than try to explain in Russian why we didn’t have it.
We did the rounds at the duty free shops and headed to our gate.
When it was time to board, they piled us all on a bus instead of using a skywalk. We’d done the bus ride to the plane before in other countries but this was the longest ride to our aircraft ever. I was starting to think we had bus tickets to Helsinki, not plane tickets. They took us around the perimeter of the airport to the complete other side. At one point we were parallel to 2 planes taxiing to the runway. It took 10-15 minutes to finally get to the plane.
It’s my first time on this model of plane, a Sukhoi Superjet RRJ-95. The seats are configured in 2-3 rows. We’re near the back with aisle and middle seats as the plane is quite full. The leg room is not bad either. My knees aren’t touching the seat in front of me which is always a good sign.
Next stop, Helsinki!
That aircraft is only about 5 years old but is surprising it was so comfortable for you. Stayed up and watched the take off.
superjet indeed