I have been fortunate to visit about 23 countries and see several national and international airports. I have no hesitation in saying that I would rate this airport at the bottom of my list. Sheremetyvo is 100% Government owned and was built during 1980 Olympic games. It is 35 km from Moscow City and quite small for an International Airport. The statistics tell us that airport has a total area of 85,000 sq. m and can serve 2100 persons/hr. Nevertheless, how they serve is a thing to see!! My first impression was it perhaps one of minor airport and not the main one.
Once you are inside you feel the interior is quite dark and there is complete lack of open space or space for that matter. Areas are closed off with glass partitions. Issue of boarding passes and immigration check is a sandwiched area. No designated queuing areas in front of service counters. There are long snaking queues in front of counters. Our connecting flight was to leave in an hour and about 200 people were clustered in front of four counters. Only one was manned (womaned) and in another counter one lady was in and out. The queues were totally messed up and airport staffs were calling out for people leaving in flights in next 30 min to come forward. Some passengers rushed in as they were supposed to move up, others could not follow what was said and rushed as well! Net result was a total chaos. Staff kept talking to each other in a loud voice. Some were quite unfriendly. We finally reached the counter by jumping queue and asked for boarding passes. The lady took our passports and left. She did not come back for a while and we were getting real concerned. When she came back she had forgotten about it, but quickly made the boarding passes. Immigration check booths were right behind and so small that two people fit with great difficulty. We entered a closed area for boarding, after hand baggage was scanned. We kept waiting there for more than an hour. There was no one who could tell us what was happening. One staff was at the gate, we could not go out into the main area and she did not know anything! The screen kept showing that the flight was on time!
We faced very similar situation with boarding passes and immigration clearance on our way back as well. Some passengers who have travelled before told us it is the same story every time. It was hard to find a toilet in the waiting area. The duty free shopping area had one. The stores had souvenirs, which were price from $10 to $1000. Alcohol prices were comparable. We could not find anything for our budget!
I understand that Alitalia and Lufthansa have stopped flying into this Airport and BA has followed. You do not have a choice if you are visiting Moscow but think twice if you need to use this as a transit airport. I have also written about my flight In Aeroflot in a separate write up.
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