Logan Airport and Pets Who Fly
by Elisa Black-Taylor
(USA)
I'm calling this article Logan Airport and Pets Who Fly. The information I'm giving you covers both dogs and cats and I thought it worthy of a story as more and more people are putting pets on a plane.
Basically there are two reasons more pets are flying than ever before. The first is more people are taking their pets along when they fly to visit family. Dogs and cats are more like members of a family and people want their animals close as much as possible.
The second reason is more people are buying cats and dogs online. Some of these "sales" are a little too much on the shady side. I don't approve of this because there are many local shelters with needy pets without involving the internet.
There is a shelter story I'd like to tell you about. It occurred at the GCAC shelter in Greenville, SC where I rescue. There was a family in California who fell in love with one of the cats on the euthanasia. Readers, I'm in awe of this family for the extra step they took in saving a life. They had their new cat flown from Greenville, SC to California.
It's nice to know this cat was already loved enough to where distance didn't matter. The cat had a good safe flight and is already spoiled in it's new home.
Logan International Airport is located in Boston. After a mishap awhile back where an airline employee didn't know how to perform CPR on a dog, the airport decided to begin classes to train airport personnel in the treatment of animals should there be an emergency.
Logan's new program is one year old and is called Passenger's With Paws. A veterinarian trains airport personnel, police, and medical team members to care for pets who fly out from their airport.
Here's a short news story on Logan and the Passenger's With Paws program.
The idea for the program came about because pets dying on a plane jumped 70% last year. A total of 39 pets were reported by the U.S. Department of Transportation as dying during transport.
Hopefully these classes will also prevent an emergency from happening in the first place.
Logan International Airport flies roughly 2000 animals each month. They also work with area hotels to advertise "pet friendly hotel" recommendations close to the airport.
Logan plans to be #1 in education of pet related issues while flying. Hopefully other airports will follow in their path.
I think it's wonderful that animals are being treated more like passengers and less like cargo.
Here's a good link for airports who offer "pet relief" areas. Of course this pertains more to dogs than to cats, but I thought I'd throw it in just in case.
For those of you who live in a major metropolitan area in the U.S., there's a new airline called Pet Airways that caters solely for pets. The airline covers New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles. As the service becomes more popular more cities will be added.
Pet Airways allows the pets to fly in the passenger cabin with a stewardess who checks on the pet every fifteen minutes.
This service urges those who travel to cat shows or those who adopt pets online to use this service. For the cat show people, owners may book on a commercial flight and collect the pet as soon as both flights land. In case of a flight delay, your pet can be boarded overnight in a PAWS lodge.
I didn't go into rules and regulations and tips for flying a pet as this would take up WAY more room than I have here. Each airport or airline has it's own set of rules so it wouldn't do much good for me to mention them in this article.
What I hope each of you take away after reading this article is to question any airline or airport that will be flying your precious cargo. Ask whether the personnel are trained for pet medical emergencies. Ask about carrying pets in the cabin vs. the cargo area. Our pets depend on us to check these things out.
Let's not let them down.
Elisa
Associated Page:
Resource:
http://petshops.about.com/
