When Stephanie Smook, Nike's travel manager EMEA, wants to book travellers from Moscow to St. Petersburg, she often schedules them to go via Warsaw.
Russia might have 200 local airlines but not all of them are safe, Ms Smook told an educational session on Russia at the ACTE Conference in Munich last month.
This was perhaps the most startling fact to emerge about the problems and worries of managing business travel in Russia. But the overall impression was that the country, where the business travel market is growing at an incredible rate, is not so much a sleeping giant as a chained giant.
Many of its problems seem hangovers from the past.
The positive side is that Russia, which holds 5% of the world's oil resources and 33% of its gas resources, is set to become a dominating economy in the next decade. More business means more travel – so a rapidly expanding market - Ms Smook said her business grew by 300% from 2003-2006 – is likely to go on growing.
The downside is that business travel management has hardly made an impression. Vadim Zelenski, owner of Zelenski Corporate Travel Solutions and chairman of the Business Travel Agents Association of Russia, said that clients had a "limited understanding of what TMCs do."
He added: "People don't understand the difference between leisure and corporate travel. Often clients don't understand what business travel is and why it is needed.
"They ask 'Why do you need deals?' We are trying to educate them," he said.
But the Big Three, American Express, Carlson Wagonlit and HRG are all established in Russia plus up to 40 local TMCs so the message is perhaps slowly getting there.
But knowing why you want your travel managed and actually achieving is a gulf that needs to be bridged.
The first major problem is that there is a variety of GDSs, many of which a travel
consultant must be able to use. Sabre handles Aeroflot's inventory, so that is obligatory. Sabre has 25% of the market compared with Amadeus's 65% and Galileo's 10%.
Aeroflot also has its own GDS, Gabriel which is again a must.
Then comes TKP which is a transport clearing house. This handles 85% of domestic air tickets and sees itself as the obvious choice to handle BSP system when that reaches the Russian market, along with e-tickets, perhaps next year.
Agents like Mr Zelenski are far from happy with the prospect of TKP handling the BSP.
TKP also has its own again obligatory GDS, SIRENA.
Finally Russia's rail system has its own booking system, which agents also must have. So that's six compared with the one or two per office in Western Europe.
Alisa Bornstein, BT's Nordics procurement manager who moderated the session, told BTE there was no immediate prospect that any of these GDSs would merge. "The GDSs belong to different owners and they prefer to protect their content in order to remain a unique source of booking."
Visas are also a major problem. Russians need them to leave their country while visitors must have one to get in. "This is the biggest problem for TMCs", Mr Zelenski said. "They take two to three weeks to get one for Russians to travel but you are never sure that you will get one.
"It is the same for people who want to come to Russia. It is a real nightmare and the worst part of out work."
The problem could not have been better illustrated as Angelica Starostina, operations and key accounts manager for HRG Russia, failed to appear at the session because her visa did not arrive in time.
An agreement has been signed between the EU and Russia to ease this problem but Ms Bornstein said it did not seem to be working. "We were expecting results of this agreement already this year, but it does not show.
"Unfortunately, the visa issue is very much a bureaucratic and political problem. It helps to keep a lot of people busy including governmental bodies, like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
Another major problem facing travel managers in Russia is the lack of hotels. Mr Zelenski said that Moscow had 215 hotel s with 35,650 rooms. Of these 2,445 are in five-star properties and 5,570 in four-star. The bulk is in lower grade in tourist hotels.
This is not enough to cope with growing business travel and meetings industries. Unsurprisingly the rates are the highest in Europe.
A survey by TRI Hospitality in July found that revPAR in the city's chain hotels had leapt 45.1% in a year while room rates were up 37% to €250. Paris, which was second highest, had a room rate of €207.
Mr Zelenski said the rate for a standard room in a five-star hotel could reach $750 while in a four-star it could be $650.
He said the government is hoping to add a further 20,000 rooms a year and would like to achiever 200,000 by 2010 which he described as "unrealistic." Wildly optimistic seems more accurate.
But Russia's meetings industry is growing rapidly, low cost carriers are establishing themselves there and Open Skies talks with the EU are likely to get underway in the next three years or so.
But for a travel manager like Ms Smook is currently faced with major challenges. In her presentation she listed a few: managing in a complicated market, managing in one that is growing rapidly, dealing with different standards from different vendors, security and the need, because of the number of GDSs, to have staff with hotel and rail booking expertise.
But the brighter side is that she is slowly succeeding. A preferred supplier programme has been established and local service level agreements are in place.
But it is likely to be a long haul in such a complex market. The last word to Ms Bornstein: "Corporate travel management barel exists. Travel suppliers have a lot of difficulties to work effectively and the use of the technology is limited.
"However they are making efforts to learn and apply Western methodology
"I would say that the Russian business travel market is about 15 years behind, depending on the fact that the market economy in Russia is still very young and there are structures and limitations that individual companies have difficulties in dealing with."