Flight Review: S7 Airlines A321neo Economy Class

This is not the first S7 flight review on this site. In fact, our previous flight report, which dates back to 2018, was about the A320 on exactly the same route, but since a lot has happened since then (covid) and the Russian airline is now operating a new aircraft, the A321neo (which the airline calls A321NX) with a new cabin, I thought it was due for a refresh.

Flight #: S7 3662

From: Barcelona (BCN)

To: Moscow Domodedovo (DME)

Flight time: 4h 30min

Aircraft: Airbus A321neo

The booking experience was pretty much the same as the previous time (you can find the wrap-up here).

Where there seems to have been some change is in the fare options and product that S7 offers. Whereas in 2018 there were 2 economy (basic and flex) and 2 business class (also basic and flex) fare options, there are now 3 economy ones (basic, standard and plus).

The Plus Economy option, though, it is pretty much like a business lite in terms of features. The price differential with standard seems to be less than it used to be when there was a “proper” business class, but I don’t know if this is consistently the case. what is more “businessy” is the seats at the front, that are much better demarcated and have a more premium feel, even if there is no physical separation in the cabin.

Besides the economy plus seats, there are some other seat rows that are considered “extra”, such as the emergency doors, because of the wider seat pitch.

Here you can get a glimpse of the economy class main section. I found the seat pitch is quite decent for a +4h flight.

The seat, which is the Essenza, made by Geven Aircraft Seats, is reclinable and there were also USB plugs to charge devices on each seat.

No IFE of any sort was available (this was not the case in another flight I had with S7 in late 2019, A320ceo in that case, in which a limited selection of movies and content was available via wireless network).

By the way, this sentence (right) that can be found at several Russian airlines, always makes me smile. I like to imagine that the airline cares a lot about the literary tastes and standards of its passengers!

Talking about literature, the inflight magazine is pretty good, although most of the content is in Russian.

One of the nice things of flying on a new generation aircraft is, of course, the ambiental lighting, particularly in a rather long, evening flight (see below)

When it comes to cabin service, on the Barcelona to Moscow flight (+4h), a small refreshment is served. Basically, it’s a sandwich (two choices: chicken or cheese), a snack and a cup of tea or coffee (or water).

An hour before landing, an additional glass of water (still or sparkling) is served.

If you check my previous S7 flight review you will see that, when it comes to inflight food, it is a bit of a step down, but, well, that was also pre-covid and it is possibly not the only airline that has cut on inflight catering.

One more thing that was distributed for free was a surgical mask, like the one below. Mask compliance was rather high during the flight (aside from a couple of notorious exceptions that didn’t follow the instructions that were repeated several times over the announcement system), no so much in the bus taking us to the terminal, which was also rather crowded.

Our take: a solid good value product. S7 continues to cover well the middle space between the more traditional full service airlines and the pure low cost players.