Pet Airways, a new US airline for dogs and cats, took off on its maiden flight on Tuesday from New York. It was to make stops in Washington, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.
Pet Airways will fly strictly pets — initially only dogs and cats — and is completely booked for the next two to three months, airline spokeswoman Aly Tognotti said.
The only people on board will be the pilot and a flight attendant who will be dedicated exclusively to the comfort of the precious freight. Better stated, the precious passengers. That’s because Alysa Binder and Dan Wiesel from Delray, Florida, who founded the airline, consider the description “freight” unacceptable for their four-legged guests.
They decided to start the airline because they felt animals often suffer when traveling and are typically treated like pieces of luggage.
Not all airlines accept house pets on board, and those that do usually put them in the cargo hold in the belly of the plane, where it can get hot or very cold. The only animals allowed in the cabin have to be small enough to fit in a cage that can be stored under the seat.
Pet Airways has started small. Initially, the airline will fly pets in a converted Beech 1900, secured in their own cages placed on fitted shelves instead of the rows of seats in standard passenger airplane.
The airline, which claims to be the first in the world dedicated to transporting pets, is operated by Suburban Air, which has a reputation for being experienced and dependable and is one of the few allowed to transport certain radioactive materials. Normally, the propeller planes seat 19 passengers. As Pet Airways planes, they will offer space for up to 50 cages for cats and dogs.
Pet Airways will fly once a week, and initially the destinations will be New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.
A one-way ticket starts at US$149. Once the airline establishes itself, more cities will be added and up to 20 planes will be put into service. Over the next two years, the airline has plans to expand services to 25 cities, given the “enormous interest from pet owners,” spokeswoman Tognotti said. Binder is confident that the airline will reach that level.
That’s no surprise in a country where there are 90 million cats, 73 million dogs, 16 million birds and 22 million reptiles as pets, according to a survey conducted by an association for the makers of animal products.
Annually, an estimated 70 million dogs and cats travel with their owners on vacation, mostly in cars, Pet Airways says, quoting statistics compiled by an association of US veterinary clinics. The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says of the 2 million animals that fly annually in airline freight cargo holds about 5,000 are injured.
This is not likely to happen at Pet Airways, which lists the US’ largest Internet pet pharmacy as one of its partners. Binder and Wiesel promise that their guests will be offered the same careful handling and stress-free travel they would want for their own dog, Zoe. A trip the terrier made gave Binder and Wiesel the idea for starting the airline.
“She once had to fly and arrived totally distressed, and planning vacations was often complicated. So we started thinking and Pet Airways was born,” said Binder.
Owners will have peace of mind, the founders say, when they check their animals in at an animal lounge up to 72 hours — but no less than two hours — before the flight. During the flight, the attendant will check the animals every 15 minutes.
After arriving, pets will be available for pickup from a special waiting room, rested and at the same time “relieved,” because Pet Airlines also guarantees sufficient toilet breaks.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby