In the past four months, Air India flew over two thousand domestic pets on its domestic flights, while many pets including turtles, hamsters, rabbits, exotic birds and even fishes travelled by roads in air-conditioned vehicles with a pet handler in tow on long-distance trips cutting across states.
As the pandemic forced many ` pet parents’ to move out of metros like Delhi, Mumbai and temporarily relocate their residences to adapt to joblessness, to save rent or just work from a different home the business of pet transportation saw a sudden spurt.
``Air India has been flying an average of four pets out of Mumbai daily,’’ said an Air India spokesperson. But on certain days, ``pet-traffic’’ peaks for the national carrier, the only airline in the country to transport pets. Like on September 14, twelve pets were booked to fly in the cabin and cargo hold of its Mumbai-Kolkata flight. But the highest pet traffic is on Delhi- Mumbai and Delhi - Bengaluru routes, said the spokesperson adding that Air India has carried around 2000 pets on domestic flights since May 25.
Companies that transport pets by roads say that pets’ travel has more than doubled due to the pandemic. Shyamax Presswalla of the Mumbai-based Bark Traveller, a global pet relocation service said that his company has done about 28 domestic relocations in the past six months, including six during the lockdown.
The company also transported pets on international flights. ``Once unlock started, we relocated 17 pets from India to foreign countries, most of them, about 5-6 to US and Hong Kong. Then, there were 6 relocations from foreign countries to India, out of which 4 were from Canada, 2 from Italy and one from the US. All these relocations were on KLM, Emirates, Qatar. These pets went as cargo,’’ said Presswalla.
Those up the pecking order fly charter flights. Rahul Muchhal of Accretion Aviation, a charter aggregator said: ``In the past 4 months, we operated 10-12 domestic charter flights for families flying with pets. It’s a trend brought on by the pandemic. People with holiday homes in Goa, Shimla fly there for a longer stay, taking their pets long.”
Transporting pets is not without perils, which is why most `pet parents’ avoid long distance travel unless it unavoidable. For instance, transporting snub nosed dogs like pugs, boston terriers, mastiffs, boxers etc in aircraft cargo hold can be dangerous as these breeds are more susceptible to air temperature and pressure. At other times, there could be accidents. In early September, an 8-month old clever cat managed to unlock the carrier she was being transported in, jumped out of Air India aircraft belly to go exploring around Delhi airport. She was traced four days later with help from Wildlife SOS.
Those up the pecking order fly charter flights. Rahul Muchhal of Accretion Aviation, a charter aggregator said: ``In the past 4 months, we operated 10-12 domestic charter flights for families flying with pets. It’s a trend brought on by the pandemic. People with holiday homes in Goa, Shimla fly there for a longer stay, taking their pets long.”
Transporting pets is not without perils, which is why most `pet parents’ avoid long distance travel unless it unavoidable. For instance, transporting snub nosed dogs like pugs, boston terriers, mastiffs, boxers etc in aircraft cargo hold can be dangerous as these breeds are more susceptible to air temperature and pressure. At other times, there could be accidents. In early September, an 8-month old clever cat managed to unlock the carrier she was being transported in, jumped out of Air India aircraft belly to go exploring around Delhi airport. She was traced four days later with help from Wildlife SOS. Road travel too has its hurdles. Presswalla said:``Transporting fish is fraught with risk, the oxygen supply could get disrupted due to sudden vehicle movement.’’
04/10/20 Manju V/Times of India
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