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'Fat cat caper' on Aeroflot flight may be nominated for Star of Far East award

Aide to the Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District believes taht "this is a story about friendship and humanity"

A cat looking out of a carrier AP Photo/Mel Evans

A cat looking out of a carrier

© AP Photo/Mel Evans

MOSCOW, November 15. /TASS/. The organizing committee of the Star of Far East award will consider the offer to nominate a Russian national who tricked the Aeroflot airline to get his heavyset cat onboard a Moscow-Vladivostok flight earlier this month for the award, Aide to the Russian Presidential Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Timur Chernyshev told TASS on Friday.

Earlier this month, the man in question, Mikhail Galin, brought his cat Viktor with him on a flight from Riga to Vladivostok with a stopover in Moscow. According to newspaper reports, during check-in at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport it turned out that the feline weighed 10 kilograms, essentially two kilograms above Aeroflot’s weight limit for pets traveling onboard. Galin failed to convince the Aeroflot staffer to let Viktor onto the plane. The passenger was forced to stay overnight in Moscow and with the help of his friends he found a smaller cat with the same pattern on its coat of fur to have it weighed it at the airport in Viktor’s place.

The next day, Galin returned to the airport with the smaller cat, who passed the weight limit test. Once the check-in process had been completed, he returned the smaller substitute cat to her owners, brought Viktor onto the plane and flew to Vladivostok. The incident was widely covered throughout social media. After an internal investigation, Aeroflot booted him from the loyalty bonus program for cheating the carrier.

"This really is a story about humanity that shows that such a vivid tale can draw the attention of all Russians to the Far East and leave the confines of its region or even reach other countries. If the citizens have focused on this story and want the award to expand its format, we will consider this offer, of course," the Russian official said.

At the same time, he pointed out the need to follow the rules. "Of course, this story is not about breaking the rules of Aeroflot or other companies. This is a story about friendship and humanity," Chernyshev noted.

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Feline fakery? Cat owner who duped Aeroflot over pet’s weight booted from bonus program

The Star of Far East award selects representatives of business and the media, as well as members of the public, for their contribution to the development of the Russian Far East. The organizing committee noted that the offer would be presented to the mission of the Russian presidential envoy to the Far East, one of the organizers of the event.

Currently, the organizing committee is accepting nominations for the 2019 Star of the Far East award. The award ceremony will be held in December 2019. The event is organized by the mission of the Russian presidential envoy to the Far East and the Russian Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic. Russian Presidential Envoy to the Far East Yuri Trutnev will present the award.

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