Master class #5: Aeroflot entertains the passengers

“Anonymous” sent me this sheet (so I am afraid I cannot acknowledge it personally, but if you read this: “Thanks!”).  It has several amusing mistakes and opportunities for mystification.

     I particularly liked (as did Anonymous), the idea that the size of a three dimensional object can be described by a single figure. Cases must not exceed “115 cms”. At one point this is rendered “115 cms (55x40x20)”. But nothing is said about luggage that is, for example, 95x10x10, as a pairs of skis might be. Likewise a painting might be 5x70x 40. Are they allowed? I think we should be told!

     Does Aeroflot really have a class of fare, along with Business and President, called “Premiere”? Is it not Premium? A Premiere is the first night of a film or stage show—I know, I attended one once with Marilyn Monroe, back in the days when Aeroflot employed stewardesses who looked rather like the baggage handlers.

      And a  “paper-folder” is a machine for folding paper. These are not normally carried in aircraft cabins as they can be quite bulky and are rarely needed on brief business trips, much less on holidays. Emigrant businessmen tend to buy new paper-folders in the place where they migrate to. Perhaps they mean a  “file or folder for private papers”, a portfolio, as it used to be called, or document-pack as it might be called today.

     And the way the massive list of “additional items” is worded appears to mean that you can bring ALL of these items on board on one flight—which I doubt. Combined, they would weigh more than your checked luggage, and take up half the cabin.
     And what these items “don't need to be” is “weighed”, not “weighted”. Properly, the latter is used comparatively, as in a “weighted index” which gives more weight to certain stocks and shares, for example, than to others. Likewise, you can have the odds weighted against you in a boxing match if your opponent weighs more than you.

     Finally, note that it is a “cabin” that the passengers travel in with their wheelchairs, outerwear, flowers, canes and paper-folding machines. It is not a “salon” (last paragraph). A “salon” is where you have your hair done, your nails manicured or your tan enhanced. It is not a “saloon” either, which is where you shoot cowboys when you are wearing spurs and a ten-gallon hat, while silently munching a cheroot with a disgustingly soggy end.