Aeroflot: 'Fat cat smuggler' falls foul of Russian airline

Russian transporter Aeroflot has stripped a traveler of his air miles for rupturing its standards by sneaking his overweight cat on board a flight.

Mikhail Galin, 34, took his cat Viktor aboard a flight SU1702, from Moscow to Vladivostok, Aeroflot said. Under Aeroflot's principles, pets weighing more than 8kg (17lb) must be placed in the luggage hold. Since Viktor was too heavy for the passenger lodge, Galin created a cunning plan. He swapped Viktor for a smaller cat during check-in to get around the weight confinements.

The carrier said in light of the fact that Galin had defied the guidelines it had "taken the choice to remove this traveler from its long-standing customer program".

"The entirety of the miles gathered during his time in the program will be abrogated," the carrier said.

Galin uncovered how he had sneaked Viktor on board the flight prior this month in a Facebook post that went viral.

In the post, Galin said he had Viktor with him on a departure from the Latvian capital Riga to Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok, which remembered a stopover for Moscow.

But when he attempted to load up the second leg of the trip in the Russian capital, Aeroflot staff would not enable him to take Viktor into the passenger cabin.

"They say something showed that the creature had filled out to 10 kilograms, a level did not take into account the lodge," Galin composed.

Reluctant to put the cat in the baggage hold, Galin deferred his flight and took the "key choice to locate a comparative cat of a lower weight" in Moscow.

After a day Galin came back to the air terminal with the smaller "cat twofold", which finished as far as possible assessment at the registration work area.

Galin then gave the small cat back to its proprietors at the air terminal before getting onto the plane to Vladivostok with Viktor.

His slip-up, it appears, was posting on Facebook about the "activity to supplant the heavy hitter Viktor". An image on his open profile shows Viktor sat on the plane by a glass of shimmering wine.

The post drew the consideration of Aeroflot, provoking it to dispatch an examination that affirmed the feline swap on CCTV.

In another post, Galin seemed to acknowledge his discipline with geniality. He shared an image of Viktor as a cat, "when his weight still met the necessities of the air transporter"