Unlike from New York, there are no nonstop flights from Boston to Moscow. An unusual option in terms of timing is departing Logan Airport at 7:50 am, having dinner during a three-hour layover at LHR, and then proceeding onward to Moscow on a flight 10:35 pm that arrives around 4:30 am Moscow time (that’s 9:30 pm in Boston). Hop in an Uber and you can be at your hotel at 6:00 am, the perfect time to go to sleep if your body still thinks it is 11:00 pm, which it is in Boston.
British Airways quotes some pretty low prices. One way that they accomplish this miracle is that seat selection in advance is not included. Add about $250 and some hassle because, at least if you’re in the Economy or Premium Economy (a.k.a. what they used to call “Coach”) ghetto, you need to go to a separate post-booking web site to see if any decent seats are still left. Then pay.
The flight over was awesome. Boston Terminal E was deserted. I had checked in a bag and was through security about 10 minutes after arriving at the curb. The flight over was pretty nice, though it seems that BA is getting out of the Economy business. Fully half of the 777 was given over to First and Business. I am ashamed to admit this, but I watched (and enjoyed!) a documentary on synchronized swimming: Perfect.
LHR is kind of hassle, involving two train rides, another security check, and Terminal 5 shops that seem geared mostly to luxury fashion. There are no quiet restaurants that I could find and, as with American airports, there are loud TVs going at most gates, so it was a long three hours. Business and First passengers can enjoy what are presumably some fairly plush lounges.
It is about 4 hours on a packed A321 to Moscow. They have a strange business class seating arrangement in the front, but it might well be worth paying for. Unlike U.S. airlines, BA doesn’t seem to have any way when checking in to pay for an upgrade on one or more legs.
Although Russia tries to hassle Americans with a visa requirement somewhat reciprocal to what we impose on them, actual immigration and customs is much more efficient than in the U.S. Unlike at U.S. airports, if your luggage is delayed they do have bathrooms in the baggage claim area!
It is a one-hour ride into central Moscow and it costs about $17.50 via Uber. Airport WiFi in Russia requires authentication via a Russia cell phone number or bank card, I think, so make sure that you have a strategy for getting data service once you’re there (see Verizon Wireless in Russia). Although technically my room reservation didn’t start until 2 pm, the Marriott Royal Aurora hotel (highly recommended) offered me an immediate check-in.
The trip back started at 4:05 pm from DME. There was a 20-minute line to get through departure immigration, so I would advise not cutting it too close (though sometimes they called for specific flights and took people out of sequence). This was a comfortable 777 with Premium Economy seating. On the final leg from LHR to Boston, about 7.5 hours, the seat that I’d paid for and gone through the hassle of signing up for via the Web was actually broken (would not recline). The flight attendants could not fix. BA did not offer any kind of refund for the seat selection or other fees. It was a smooth ride down the glideslope, but the 777 pounded Runway 27 at Logan so hard that passengers gasped. (Can we sign up to be the landing gear supplier to BA?) Wind was a steady 16 knots so it is unclear why the landing was so hard. In any event, the gear remarkably did not come off the plane and we arrived at the gate early. Clearing immigration was quick due to my global entry status.
If you’re one of the Business or First travelers that BA actually wants to deal with, and you want to avoid flying overnight, I think these are good options in terms of timing. It might also work if you’re completely indifferent as to where you sit in the airplanes. I’m not sure that Premium Economy makes sense given the hassle of booking specific seats on a separate web site (coupled with the airline’s lack of any procedure for dealing with the consequences of their failure to maintain working seats).
Short haul business class on BA is interesting. Rather than have a separate cabin they instead configure the first few rows with a slightly different middle seat that can be blanked. This results in a two abreast configuration. The seats are not any larger than what you would find in coach. It does, however, allow BA to dynamically adjust where business class stops and where coach starts.
I believe JFK and DFW have bathrooms accessible from the international baggage carousels pre-customs.
Pretty sure there are bathrooms in PHL and ORD as well as JFK. Boston must be the odd one out.
In Boston there are bathrooms between the airplane and the passport gates (a good thing, since it can be a one-hour wait). But then they cite security as a reason for not having any bathrooms between the passport gates and the Customs exit. They were budgeting for a 10-minute transit through this area, I think, but sometimes it can be an hour or more.
SFO has the same situation you describe for BOS. The airplane-to-passport line (if you don’t have Global Entry) can get horrifically long and I don’t think there are any bathrooms in the baggage-to-customs section. Baggage delivery takes longer than most airports I’ve visited.