Man who smuggled overweight cat onto plane stripped of frequent flyer status

Talk of smuggling usually evokes images of drugs, guns and other contraband — but it was a fat cat that saw one man punished by Russian airline Aeroflot.

Mikhail Galin was stripped of his air miles after smuggling Viktor the cat into the cabin with him on a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East.

While pets weighing under eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) are allowed in the cabin, heavier animals have to travel in the hold, according to Aeroflot rules.

Viktor the cat weighed in at 10 kilograms at check-in, and Galin wasn’t willing to send his furry friend below deck.

But Aeroflot check-in staff wouldn’t budge.

“To all attempts to explain that the cat won’t survive there on an 8-hour flight with the baggage and would haunt her in her nightmares for the rest of her life, she (the Aeroflot staff member) replied that there are rules,” Galin wrote in a