Aeroflot started up in 1923 as "Dobrolet" (a name it briefly used for its low cost subsidiary in 2013/14), first aircraft was...a Junkers F13! 1/n 
The Junkers F13 was a really interesting aircraft, truly advanced to its time. German luaggage maker @RIMOWA re-built one from scratch recently. We were there for the 1st flight!-> allplane.tv/blog/2016/9/19… 2/n
But back to #Aeroflot : first flight was to Nizhny Novgorod, some 400km east of moscow, a distance that could be theoretically covered in 4h, but took much longer because of repeated technical issues 3/n
The airline changed its name to Aeroflot in 1932, by then it was already the largest airline in the world, with a route network spanning from central Europe all the way to central asia and eastern Siberia
Aeroflot introduced jet airliners in 1956 (also quite advanced for its time), the Tu-104 (read this interesting story about a mathematician restoring single-handedly an old Tu-104 in Siberia-> cnn.com/travel/article…) 5/n
In 1963, shortly after the Cuban missile crisis, Aeroflot started flights to Havana, with Tu-114 aircraft, it took 16h from Moscow plus a 4h stop in Murmansk (longest flight in the world at the time!), economy class ticket cost roughly 10 times theaverage Soviet salary 6/n
In 1967 Aeroflot starts flying to Japan 🇯🇵but with the particularity that crews on its Tu-114 were mixed Soviet-Japanese and aircraft sported both Soviet and Japanese airline symbols. Btw, Tu-114 had an onboard chef!
In the 1970s Aeroflot developed the Europe to Asia air corridor concept, with Il-62 aircraft connecting Paris/London to Moscow and the onwards to Tokyo. Not sure how successful was it in attracting foreign traffic, though...8/n
I found fascinating that Aeroflot created its own propeietary electronic booking system already in the early 1970s, called. sirena-1, connecting all its sales offices in the Soviet Union 9/n
Oh! And justa bit earlier than that, in 1968, @aeroflot started flights to New York, via Montreal using Il-62 aircraft 10/n
In 1977 The supersonic Tu-144 (the "Soviet Concorde") joined Aeroflot's fleet, it could reach 2,500km/h, a height of 20,000m and a reach of 8,000km but it had quite a few technical and operational ossues and not a success 11/n
The Tu-144 could fly from Moscow to Alma-Ata (now Almaty, in Kazakhstan) in 1.5h. As a curiosity, those that flew on it had the passport stamped with a special "Have flown the Tu-144" stamp 12/n
In 1980 Aeroflot moved to Sheremetyevo airport, its current home (although it has changed a lot since and still more renovation works are ongoing at a new terminal), just in time for the Moscow Olympics that same year 13/n
Well, what happens next is well known: fall of the Soviet Union and Aeroflot is divided in many "Baby-flots" all over the territory of the former USSR, just before that, tge Soviet Aeroflot had time to run the New York route jointly with Pan Am (from 1988 to 1991) 15/n
The 90s were quite tough for Aeroflot and Russia in general. The airline introduced the forst Western-made planes (@airbus A-310s) in 1992. These were usually reserved for "prestige" routes such as London, Geneva or Tokyo 16/n
In2003 Aeroflot introduced its current silver livery with the flag on the tail, in 2006 it joined Skyteam...and well...since then it has transformed itself remarkably into an airline capable of winning international awards, it has come a looong way! 18/n
And that's it for today! I just thought there were plenty of interesting morsels of information about this fascinating airline that were worth sharing . May do threads like this more often! 19/n
