Russia is a great country, flying there is generally fun (except bad ATC English and occasional money extortion by police), but it is very hard to deal with Russian government.
The information is 2 weeks old. Delta is working directly with the Russian Embassy in Washington and has a liaison processing visas for crew members since 1990's.
According to the agreement with Russian government the crew members are issued company visas which are different from Russian tourist and business visas for foreign citizens.
All we have to do is to fill out a form on-line, but it is unacceptably complicated and has confusing instructions with one paragraph canceling another.
All you can do is laugh! It is brain boggling for people who work in environment of precision and clarity, like pilots.
We fly into 64 countries and only Russia and China require full blown visas for crew members. France requires schengen visa, getting which is a non-event. Chinese process is very easy. Russian is harder than during the Soviet Union days.
Still, I think we are somewhat lucky because we got grandfathered in the old process established by Pan Am in the late 80’s.
When Continental Airlines researched the possibility of flying to Moscow they were told that the obtaining visas will cost $700 per crew member, they will be valid for 1 year only and every crew member will have to have AIDS test done ever 3 months!
---------- Post added at 19:03 ---------- Previous post was at 18:34 ----------
well, well, well....
Did you have a chance to read and compare abovementioned links for US, UK and Canadian applicants with application for the citizens of other countries?
in order to just start process of reviewing your visa application they ask for the confirmation of hotel payment., that means you do have to prepay your accommodation without warranty of getting visa. does in make a sence?
We no longer are talking about crew member visas, right?
It makes all the sense in the World. When you are, as a law abiding citizen, planning a trip somewhere you.. plan things, right?
Make reservations, buy tickets, decide what you want to do..
It is exactly what they want to see, among other things, before they make a decision to issue you a visa.
Why don’t they just trust you?
Because the Russian visitors have the highest percentage of criminal activity per capita.
If you will not be granted the visa just cancel your reservations and refund the money.
That’s how they see it.
Hope it helps.
---------- Post added at 19:50 ---------- Previous post was at 19:03 ----------
From Russia side mr. Zadornov and now he got his American counterpart chief pilot of JFK
I understand it is not important, but he is not yet American, he is Italian!!