Cat-astrophe! Man stripped of airmiles for smuggling his fat moggy onto plane

A Russian airline has stripped a passenger of his airmiles for smuggling his overweight cat aboard a flight.

Mikhail Galin, 34, took pet Viktor with him on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Vladivostok, breaching the airline’s rules that say animals weighing more than 8kg must be placed in the hold.

He got around the restriction by cunningly swapping his 10kg moggy for another smaller cat during check-in.

Unwilling to place the cat in the hold, Mr Galin found someone in Moscow willing to let him borrow the slimmer cat to fool airline staff, and gave the other pet back to its owners once he was cleared to go through security.

But Aeroflot rumbled him after he boasted on Facebook about the “operation to replace the fat cat Viktor” — with a picture showing Viktor sitting on the plane next to a glass of sparkling wine.

The airline said because Mr Galin had broken the rules it had “taken the decision to take this passenger out of its frequent flyer programme... all of the miles collected during his time in the programme will be annulled.”