Review of Ukraine International flight Kiev → Chişinău in Economy

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the 2nd report of the new series of flight reports covering my latest trip to Moldova with a day stopover in Kiev with Ukraine International Airlines.

01.05.2019 - FLIGHT PS804, WAW-KBP, B737-800
01.05.2019 - FLIGHT PS897, KBP-KIV, B737-800 - you are here
05.05.2019 - FLIGHT PS898, KIV-KBP, B737-800
05.05.2019 - FLIGHT PS801, KBP-WAW, B737-800

A STOPOVER IN KIEV

As we arrived to Kiev at 08:30 local time and were supposed to leave at 19:45, a trip to the city was a rather obvious solution. Even if the weather on that 1st day of May was rather typical for November with 8 degrees Celsius and pouring rain, it was better to stay somewhere in the city than at the aiport.
Transport to and from Boryspil airport became much easier last year when the railway connection was launched. The train, even if it is far too small, takes you to Kiev within 35 minutes for a very reasonable price of approximately 3 euro.
You have to exit the terminal to get to the station but the whole path is fully covered which is very important in case of rain.

The final stop in Kiev is the main railway station where you can change for the underground

Happily when we got to the center, the rain stopped and it didn't reactivate for the rest of the day. The only negative factor was a very cold wind that limited our tour to some most central points only.
The fameous Independence Square

Saint Sophia's monastery (it definitely looks better with some sun)

This time we visited the St Michael with golden domes monastery that was completely destroyed by the communists and then fully rebuilt

Next to the monastery there is a funicular that takes you down to the Dnipro river. I didn't actually know it existed. We had fun going down and up again.

Very close to it there is St Andrew's descdent known as Kiev's most beautiful street with the monastery od St Andrew on its peak end.

Kiev became quite foggy in in the end of the day when we were already heading back to the airport.

Even if the main railway station in Kiev looks as if time has stopped there some 20 years ago, there is a special lounge for passengers of the "Boryspil Express". Actually the only way to get to the platform is to scan the code on your ticket and pass through the lounge with comfortable seats, sockets, current departures and complimentary Wi-Fi.

There is one stop on the route as the train serves also as a local commuter. This time it is so crowded that hardly anyone can step inside.

THE FLIGHT

Back to Boryspil for our flight to Chisinau, quick security and passport control and we are back to the departures area with some spotting thanks to huge windows

LOT E-95 to WAW

UIA 767-300

and a 737-800 that won't be our ride as I first thought

Because we will board our aircraft by bus…

This time I got an aisle seat in row 10 that has no window. Anyway it's a short 50 minutes flight so I don't care that much. This 737-800 looks a little bit better than the previous one but legroom is more or less the same

For this flight I booked us a small hot meal - chicken Kiev that, as Wikipedia says, is: "a dish made of chicken fillet pounded and rolled around cold butter, then coated with eggs and bread crumbs, and either fried or baked". I've already tried it in the city and didn't expect to much from the airline version but for 9 euro with drink included I decided to give it a try.

As soon as the fasten seat belt sign is off and the service starts, our dish arrives. First difference: it is not served anymore in the business class style as 2 years ago, china and real cutlery have been replaced by box and plastic :(

But you have a possibility to see your chef's face before eating your dish, how kind!

It is served with hot mashed potatoes and hot carrots and tastes quite good

We can take either water or tea/coffee. I choose tea.

The flight time is hardly enough to finish our meal and we begin to descend to Chisinau. We must have been quite high despite a very short flight time cause the descent is long and sometimes very rough as if we needed to loose a lot of altitude in a relatively short time.
Finally we arrive to warm and dry Chisinau

where the very small airport makes a very nice impression at first sight

After a taxi ride of not more than 15 minutes we arrive to the living legend as Cosmos hotel in Chisinau is described. Built somewhere in the 70-ties or 80-ties hasn't changed much from the early 90-ties and that is its main asset as you can literally make a trip back in time. Despite the "stylish" furniture and ancient equipment it is very clean and the staff more than polite. Morover for approximately 17 euro per person per night we get something like a two room appartment with…two bathrooms! 

More pictures from Moldova will follow in the next report. Many thanks for reading!