Pobeda Airlines

Not Verified | First time flying Pobeda they charged for check-in even though they admitted their online check-in system was broken. Their line was that they would reimburse this after landing but despite countless emails they never did. Decided to give them a second chance and they have unreasonably small sizes for hand luggage, for which they charged a hefty €30.

✅ Trip Verified | I had valid Russian Visa, plus invitation letter. I come to the airport Bergamo and the they didn't accept me on fly. Because cannot fly for tourism. I try to explain that I have not a "Tourism Visa" but "Guest visa" They didn't let me board. My girlfriend coming from Kursk to Moscow by train to meet me in airport. She had to go back again.

✅ Trip Verified | Terrible airline even by low-cost standards. It all starts from website, where you can't change the currency. Airline is deciding In what currency you'll pay. Carry-on bag limits are very restrictive. Can't get "IATA Cabin OK" bag on board even for extra money. Because of that there are constant bag checks. No, they can't give you the label that your bag is okay size. They need to bother you at every leg of the journey, starting with the first check-in. Going one way I've got the label and bad to measure my bag only once, at check-in. But going back there was no bag label, had to put in that rack 3 times. My bag fits, but doing that is extremely annoying. Seats have no legroom (as expected). Surprisingly, you can get drinking water on board without any problems. Actually, the only thing that is good about Pobeda, is cabin crew. They are very pleasant. 2 flights each way, 4 in total, only pleasant experience. But I want to mention extremely stupid announcements on the plane by, I guess, some comedian. Really hard to tolerate it without earplugs. If the airline would've addressed carry-on restrictions, it would've been a decent low-cost airline. But right now, it's better to avoid, because can't be good with only cabin crew efforts, other teams should do better.

✅ Trip Verified | Moscow to Antalya. I would say I liked flying with Pobeda Airlines. The problem is about baggage allowance. I have spent 5 months in Russia as an exchange student; hence, I needed to take a lot stuff with me. I have flown to Russia with Pegasus Airlines, I had 30kgs of checked baggage and 8kgs of cabin baggage allowance, it was perfectly enough. I experienced no problems. When I was searching for tickets come back to Turkey, I was looking for the most reasonably priced option and came across Pobeda Airlines. It was cheap, baggage allowance was 20kgs, but it was no problem. I have purchased 20kgs more for ~1250 RUB, so was feeling relaxed. A couple of days before the flight, thankfully, one of my friends warned me that in Pobeda flights extra baggage is not added to your standard baggage allowance. These two were separate; hence, you could take one single bag which can be 20kgs at max, and one more bag as the same. I thought it was quite stupid; hence, did not really think it was real. Still, I tried to pack my stuff accordingly. When I reached the airport and checked-in, I realized that was real. I had 4 bags (large travel luggage, small sports bag, one backpack and one laptop case for cabin), and they have told me they could accept only two of these as checked baggage. One bag was around 28kgs and other was 5-6kgs; hence, the total was around 33-34 kgs. However, I had to re-arrange them so these could be at most 20.9 kgs. I have spent 20 mintutes at the desk struggling with my luggage, thrown some cheap clothes and etc. As a result, my large bag was ~20.8 and small bag was 7-8 kgs. Since they couldn't accept any other bag because of the fact I had 2x20kgs (which exactly means 2 BAGS maximum 20kg), I had to fill my backpack with clothes and electronics for cabin, hold my laptop in my arms and throw my laptop case/bag since it was larger than the allowed sizes. I had some problems with my laptop case which is additional to my overall baggage allowance problem. My laptop is a 15.6" regular sized one. The case of it was also not oversized. It had reinforced walls and corners to protect my laptop so it didn't bend. It refused to bend to the stupid rules of Pobeda, so I had to throw it at the airport due to 2-3 centimeters extra. To sum up, do not prefer Pobeda if you're not using exactly same travel luggage bags weighing up top 20kgs.

✅ Trip Verified | Berlin to Moscow. You have to pay for anything apart from your personal item. That includes your carry-on luggage. Longest queue at check-in I have seen in years as a result of everybody having to pay for carry-on or luggage that was more than 20kg. Aircraft are new and made a good impression. Cabin crew young, good-looking and charmingly helpless. Seat do not recline.

✅ Trip Verified | Berlin Tegel to Moscow Vnukovo. The cheapest ticket doesn't include any checked luggage and only a small piece of hand luggage. There's a possibility to buy checked luggage in advance - but no such feature for hand luggage! According to this - a person travelling with, for example, a medium-size backpack, should drop it at check-in. Well - it's OK for a LCC to omit any luggage for the cheapest ticket, but why not to let additionally buying an option for large hand luggage? So, if you're travelling with anything bigger than a purse, it's strongly recommended to buy an item of checked luggage in advance - because at check-in desk this will be very costly. Online check-in is tedious, with lots of advertising (do you want to buy an insurance policy? to assign a seat? etc..) One needs to visit the check-in desk for dropping big hand luggage off, for visa check - so a very long queue occurred. Surprisingly, but currently they don't coerce passengers to online check-in as it used to be some months ago - it's also free at check-in desk, but they also accept mobile boarding passes. Tegel terminal C, disorganized, with enormous queues anywhere - is a real nightmare, but that's not Pobeda's fault. They don't provide any meal service onboard, one cannot buy anything, even snacks - some passengers complained on it. Only drinking water is served. However, the aircraft is new and tidy, the seats are acceptable (Ryanair-like), though not reclining, the ground and cabin crew are polite and helpful. As for me, there were too much announcements, especially about smoking prohibition - this was repeated more than 5 times. Usually the flights are punctual, but this time we had a small delay (30 min), due to heavy traffic at VKO, I guess. Generally - for such a price the product is absolutely acceptable. The only recommendation - before the flight read the rules and conditions carefully, in order not to goof.

✅ Trip Verified | Moscow to Irkutsk. Staff were impolite to me at Moscow Vnukovo airport at check-in and at boarding the plane. The nicety at measuring the size of hand luggage is aimed exclusively at extracting additional money from the client, even for 1 cm over the norms.

✅ Trip Verified | Moscow Vnukovo to Murmansk. When we reached the check-in desk, the attendant initially asked us to pay 6000 rubles to allow baggage for check. We asked her for the reason to deny check-in and also tried to convince her by saying we have paid for 4 but carrying only 2 bags. Still, she declined to check-in the luggage as they have only 15 to close the check-in and told us "if you want, you can carry your luggage till the boarding point and pay the extra 6000 rubles if you still want to travel". Without any option, we carried our luggage through security check and to the boarding gate. At the boarding gate with 10 minutes left to board the flight. However, the attendant said gate closed. We were clueless what to do when we were denied for boarding. Then, we went through the other boarding gates and one of the crew from other airlines advised us to go back to ticket counters and check with Pobeda. We strolled our luggage and went to 1st floor to pobeda office. When inquired about our flight, staff mentioned that that was the only flight for that day and the next flight is for same time on next day. 14600 rubles was the fare we paid for the flight and they were unable to adjust us to the next flight with an answer "it is a non refundable ticket". When we tried to book for the same day, the fare was 28600 rubles and the next flight is from Domodedovo airport at 10 pm (3 hours time left). We booked the ticket and rushed to other airport through the traffic

✅ Trip Verified | Istanbul to Moscow. Awful, terrible. Rude employees and they ask 45euros for a normal cabin luggage! Nether fly with them anymore. Better take any other airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Sochi to St Petersburg. Terrible customer service, employees rude and unhelpful to me. Luggage not included in my ticket (35,000 rubels per bag). Even carry on small luggage bags were paid (30,000 rubels at the gate). 100,000 rubels total for baggage. Recommend not to fly Pobedo Airlines.