Interesting Aeroflot Stats

[Flying Fox]

Tripped over this article -

Former accident-prone Russian carrier Aeroflot announced world's most powerful

What interested me the most was the stats about Aeroflot (who I have never flown).

The Aircraft Crashes Record Office reports that 8,231 passengers have died in Aeroflot crashes. Air France is next on its list, with 1,783, followed by Pan Am (1,645), American (1,442), United (1,211) and TWA (1,077).

Why was Aeroflot so accident prone? Its sheer size was a major factor. Aeroflot was once the only airline in operation throughout the whole of the Soviet Union and by the mid-Sixties it was already carrying a remarkable 60 million passengers a year. At the height of the 1970 summer holiday season, it was flying 400,000 passengers a day. By comparison, Pan Am welcomed just 11 million passengers throughout the whole of 1970. Aeroflot's figures grew yet further to 100 million in 1976, more than the likes of easyJet and Ryanair carry today.

I thought that others here might be interested in these factoids as well.

PS. I was surprised that AF took second place!
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[samh004]

I knew AF was bad.

While Aeroflot may have been carrying way more passengers than even some big airlines today, it doesn't mean you can ignore proper maintenance or employ people who don't follow the rules. Just think, had they not cut so many corners they may have been truly massive by now... a jumbo version of EK!

 

[dmitri]

I flew Aeroflot from Warsaw to Moscow in December 2014, my wife was quite nervous as she knew the history of them, but the flight was as smooth as a QF flight (except for the passengers that cracked their duty free vodka mid flight)

 

[clazman]

Could we also argue more extreme weather and Russian aircraft didn't help?

 

[odysseus]

Could we also argue more extreme weather and Russian aircraft didn't help?

And standards, and typical Russian corruption.

Flew them a little while back. Had slightly excess luggage. Check-in agent offered the standard cash in hand bribe... or could be charged the official excess luggage charges being much higher of course.

 

[Irishbazz]

And standards, and typical Russian corruption.

Flew them a little while back. Had slightly excess luggage. Check-in agent offered the standard cash in hand bribe... or could be charged the official excess luggage charges being much higher of course.

Had a buddy fly with them back in the nineties, stopped by customs and the same typical Russian corruption kicked in with the stretching of a rubber glove over their hands and the threat of cash in hand or start coughing!! Needless to say as legend has it he dropped his shorts and gave them a wink and got waved through! Sorry for going off topic but thought it may be relevant for any future AFFers going to Russia.