Missed Your Flight at Pulkovo: What Can Still Be Saved

A jam on Pulkovskoye Highway, a slow security line or an alarm that never rang: you are in the terminal and the board next to your flight already says "boarding closed". Pulkovo has a single terminal and no airport express train, so there are few ways to catch up, but the order of actions is simple. Here is what to do in the first ten minutes, what Russian law says about your money, when the delay counts as not your fault, and how to leave the airport if the next flight is only in the morning.

First, work out how late you are

Check-in at Pulkovo closes no later than 40 minutes before departure. That is both the airport's rule and a federal one: under Russia's Federal Aviation Rules an airport may not close check-in earlier than 40 minutes before the scheduled time. This gives three situations.

• Check-in is still open. Do not queue: go to any desk of your airline and say you are late. If you checked in online and have no bag, skip the desks and go straight to security with your mobile boarding pass; Pulkovo accepts them on domestic flights.
• Check-in is closed, boarding is still on. Formally, a passenger who misses the end of check-in may be refused carriage on that flight. In practice the airline's representative decides: with a boarding pass and no hold luggage you are sometimes let through. Ask the information desk where your carrier's office is and go there, not to the general check-in desks.
• Boarding is closed. The aircraft will not wait, and if you checked a bag it will be offloaded and screened, as the rules require. You collect it in the terminal, usually through the lost-luggage service; the airline desk will tell you where.

Your money: the law is fairer than it looks

What happens next depends on your fare and on when you told the airline you were not flying. Article 108 of the Russian Air Code sets it out.

• Refundable fare. Notify the airline 24 hours or more before check-in closes and you get the full fare back. Later than that, but before check-in closes, you lose 25 percent. Once check-in has closed, the fare is not refunded.
• Non-refundable fare. The fare is lost in any case, but the law explicitly leaves you the unused charges collected on behalf of third parties, that is airport taxes. Ask the airline to refund those: not much money, but yours.
• Your return leg. Some airlines' fare rules cancel the following segments if you do not show up for the first one. Call the carrier immediately, before the flight departs: the return ticket can often be kept only until then.

The practical conclusion: phone the airline from the taxi the moment you realise you will not make it, not from the terminal after boarding has closed. Every threshold you miss costs money.

When it is not your fault

The rules list cases of "forced refusal of carriage", where the airline must refund you in full or rebook you. The ones that happen to visitors at Pulkovo:

• you missed boarding because security screening took too long and nothing prohibited was found on you;
• the airline delayed or cancelled a flight and you missed a connection on a single through ticket;
• you or a close relative travelling with you fell ill, with medical documents to prove it.

A traffic jam, a broken-down bus or a late taxi are not on the list: getting to the airport is your risk. If security held you up, document it at once: ask the aviation security staff or the information desk for a note of the time you cleared screening, and photograph your boarding pass with its print time and the departure board. Without paper, "they searched me for ages" is just words. If the flight itself is late, we have a separate guide on what you are owed when a flight from Pulkovo is delayed.

A new ticket: today or tomorrow

Look for the next flight in the airline's app first; it is faster than queueing at its office. If your own carrier has nothing, the airport's ticket service also sells seats. Before you buy, check two things: whether your return leg has been cancelled, and whether rebooking under your fare rules is cheaper than a fresh ticket. If the next flight is tomorrow morning, compare a hotel by the terminal with a night in the city plus the trip there and back.

If you have to stay: leaving Pulkovo

Buses 39 and 39E run from the airport to Moskovskaya metro station; the fare is 88 roubles. Bus 39 runs from 5:15 to 1:36 every 5 to 7 minutes, the 39E express from 6:00 to 1:40 every 13 to 20 minutes. The metro, however, closes around midnight, so after twelve the bus only takes you to a shut station. What really works at night is a taxi: the airport's official partner is Yandex Go, with desks in the domestic baggage hall and right outside arrivals. The airport itself warns against the private drivers who tout for passengers in the terminal. Routes and prices are covered in our guide from Pulkovo to the city centre.

There are hotels next to the terminal, and for an early flight that is the calmest option. If you have a full day or more before departure, a place in the city makes more sense: the centre is half an hour away by bus and metro in the daytime, and an evening in Saint Petersburg beats a night at the airport.

How not to repeat it

• The airport recommends arriving at least 2 hours before departure; check-in opens 2 to 3 hours before international flights and 1 to 2 hours before domestic ones.
• Check in online on the airline's website: without luggage you go straight to security.
• Check your gate number half an hour before boarding starts, as the airport advises; since September there are fewer voice announcements in the terminal.
• The boarding-closing time is printed on your boarding pass. Plan around it, not around the departure time.

Frequently asked questions