On Aeroflot, Safety Is In Spitting Distance

Spit three times over the left shoulder.

That's what many superstitious Aeroflot passengers do before boarding a domestic flight of the official Soviet airline.

It's the Russian equivalent of knocking on wood to avoid bad luck.

Pretty silly, I thought, as I climbed aboard the Aeroflot TU-134 at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport last month for a flight to Tallinn, Estonia.

Pretty funny, I thought, as the Russian passengers on the plane broke into cheers and applause when the plane successfully lifted off the runway.

Still chuckling, I opened my copy of the weekly English-language edition of Moscow News, a respected independent newspaper that I'd picked up in the airport, and read the headline: ``Air travel at home is risky business.''

``Air Traffic Controllers Administration under the Ministry of Civil Aviation are today calling their profession socially dangerous,'' the article began. ``The ministry doesn't guarantee in-flight safety to any of Aeroflot's 200 million passengers.''

Suddenly my mouth felt a bit dry. I couldn't have spit three times over my shoulder if my life depended on it - and perhaps it did.

The article's author, Sergei Bura, described ``the naive trust'' instilled in him since childhood that Aeroflot ``was comfortless and never on time, but at least it was safe.''

Then he unloaded, with both barrels: ``Aeroflot's guarantee of flight security is a bluff. . . . How long is it possible to keep quiet about the fact that the official, average - or to speak more plainly - desired level of flight safety aboard Aeroflot is two times less than the average flight safety in the USA? And really, these levels in some parts of our country can be three, four - God knows, how many times - lower!''

Bura's article was especially critical of the Soviet air-traffic control system: ``Of the 102 airports in the U.S.S.R., only two have automated systems for managing air traffic, and these are obsolete,'' he wrote. ``Only Moscow has a system for preventing air collisions.

``According to the prediction made by the Main Computing Center of the Air Traffic Administration of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, passengers flying to Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk, Kuibyshev, Vologda and Tbilisi will be in even greater danger next year. To this list can be added Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East.''

Well, I thought, at least Tallinn wasn't on the list.

But when our flight landed there two hours later, I found myself cheering loudly along with the Russians aboard.

Is Aeroflot really so dangerous? Hard to say: Reliable statistics, particularly about airplane safety, near-misses or crashes, are still virtually impossible to come by in the Soviet Union.

And domestic flights are one thing; international flights another. Aeroflot's international flights, such as the direct Seattle-Moscow routes being offered this summer during the Goodwill Games, are required to meet higher safety and service standards.

Still, there's no question that flying Aeroflot in the U.S.S.R. can be a trying experience. I had last flown Aeroflot from Murmansk to Leningrad in 1984. On that nearly four-hour flight, passengers were served nothing - no food, no coffee, no tea, not even mineral water.

I'll never forget the Soviet man who generously passed a whole dried fish down the aisle, and watched as ravenous passengers ripped off hunks - fins, scales, bones and all - with their bare hands. Never since have I complained about airline food.

But my latest trip was in the Mikhail Gorbachev era of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). I was eager to see if those reform policies had reached Aeroflot.

The answer? Not exactly.

On our two-hour flight from Moscow to Tallinn, we were served mineral water, in shallow plastic cups shaped like miniature birdbaths. Nothing else.

Passenger amenities are clearly not high on Aeroflot's list of priorities. I also flew Aeroflot from Bucharest, Romania, to Moscow. On that three-hour flight, service was equally indifferent.

On neither Aeroflot flight did we have seat assignments. Passengers just crowded aboard and grabbed whatever seat they liked.

The first thing that hits you when you step aboard an Aeroflot plane is the smell: a pungent combination of cigarette smoke, jet fuel, spicy salami, and body odor. (Forget the fresh-air vent over your seat - it doesn't work.)

The acrid, nose-wrinkling, headache-inducing, sickly sweet-and-sour smell doesn't go away. For once, I was glad when the no-smoking light was turned off after we were airborne and about half the passengers lit up cigarettes: The tobacco smoke actually seemed to improve the cabin odor.

Aeroflot cleaning crews may exist, but their work is not evident. ``We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us'' - the standard joke among Soviet workers - obviously applies to Aeroflot crews as well.

Don't expect to stow much carry-on luggage in overhead compartments. Both planes I flew on had narrow, shallow shelves above the seats that could hold jackets, briefcases - and not much else.

Carry-on bags of even minimal size had to be stowed beneath the seats - not the seat in front of you, as on most Western airlines, but under your own seat. And the seats had diagonal metal struts underneath them that excluded any bag much larger than a lunchpail. Many of the people in our group sat with their feet on their carry-ons, or even held their bags in their laps during the flight.

We were served lunch on the Bucharest-Moscow flight: A hard roll, a slice of dark bread, a few slices of ham, cheese and salami, a cucumber slice, an olive, and some lemon-wafer cookies.

We had a choice of three cold beverages: mineral water, weak lemonade or sour white wine. Then a flight attendant came down the aisle with a large metal teapot (no coffee was available), and filled our little birdbath-shaped plastic cups to the rim.

On my Moscow-Tallinn flight, passengers - especially those sitting toward the front of the plane - stood up after we landed, preparing to disembark.

But an announcement came over the speaker that those sitting in the rear seats had to get off first. Otherwise, it was explained, the plane would be unbalanced and might tip forward on its nose!

By that time, I was perfectly willing to wait. At least I was on the ground in one piece.

As I walked across the tarmac toward the terminal in Tallinn, I turned and spit three times over my left shoulder.

Somehow, it seemed the perfect way to end an Aeroflot flight.

Here's a firsthand look at flights on several other East Bloc airlines:

Interflug - The official East German airline is impressively efficient. Maybe too efficient: Our flight from East Berlin's Schoenefeld Airport to Prague, Czechoslovakia, actually left 15 minutes early.

Service was prompt, friendly and thorough. Flight attendants passed out pieces of candy while we were still on the runway awaiting take-off.

Instead of the pilot describing our flight plan on the intercom, an information sheet was handed out. There were only two copies, which passengers were asked to read and hand back to those behind them.

It included the captain's name, the temperature in Prague, our estimated altitude, speed, distance and flight time, and the names of the cabin attendants (who were called ``stewardesses'' even though one of them was male).

Also, no smoking was allowed on this short (35-minute) flight - which was unique in several flights I took in cigarette-happy Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Tarom - Our flight on the Romanian national airline from Warsaw to Bucharest was delayed for three hours. After sitting in the airport for that long, we were eager to board the plane.

As we climbed aboard, however, the airport lounge started to look pretty good. The plane, a Soviet-made Ilyushin-18, a four-engine turboprop, must have been at least 25 years old.

It had the look and feel of a converted military aircraft: gray-painted interior, gray curtains (no door) in front of the cockpit, gray-upholstered seats, and gray wool seatbelts. On the back of each seat, in red stenciled letters, were the words: ``Your Life Jacket is Under Your Seat.''

There were no assigned seats, and the flight was overbooked. Several members of our group couldn't find seats in the main cabin. After a brief argument with the crew, some moved up to the ``first-class'' cabin - where the seats and legroom were exactly the same as in the rest of the plane, although the ventilation system seemed to work better.

The final frustration: It took nearly two hours to retrieve our checked baggage at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport. The crude luggage carousel had only one conveyor belt leading up to it. The belt kept jamming as bags piled up, so they'd stop the motor while a boy about 10 years old crawled down the narrow chute to free the bags. At first I thought he was the son of a passenger; then I was told that he worked there full-time. Child-labor laws apparently aren't a concern in Romania.

The Bucharest airport would be an embarrassment in any Third World country. It was falling apart. The terminal had cracked walls, broken windows, a leaky roof, water on the floor, and rubble in the waiting room. A couple of sparrows were flying around inside the building while we waited. At least their flights left on time.

John Hamer recently returned from assignment in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as part of a trip organized by the National Conference of Editorial Writers.