A pampered pooch had an entire airplane Business Class cabin all to its self after the dog’s owner booked up every single seat to ensure the spoilt pet was able to travel in true luxury and privacy.
The small Maltese snowy furball had all 12 Business Class seats of an Air India operated Airbus A320 aircraft to jump around on during the roughly two-hour flight between Mumbai and Chennai on September 15 according to several sources.
The sources quoted by local media also claim the dog’s owner spent Rs 2.5 lakh (around USD $3,390) to secure the entire Business Class cabin’s on Wednesday’s flight.
While many airlines have toughened up their policies for carrying pets in the cabin, Air India remains an outlier in India and allows passengers to along bring two pets each. The airline has already carried thousands of pets in 2021, although this is believed to be the first time that a pet has had so much room.
This Maltese certainly had a more luxurious experience than the cat of an Etihad Airways pilot who accidentally managed to pack his pet in his suitcase back in November 2019. The First Officer’s cat managed to survive a 14-hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney in the cargo hold of the plane.
The pilot was first informed of the cat’s disappearance from the family home when a friend went to feed the critter and realised it was nowhere to be found. Shortly after, the cat turned up in the pilot’s hotel room.
Obviously not in the best state, the cat was taken to a local vet for a check-up and is now being held in quarantine.
In the same month, Russian airline Aeroflot stripped a frequent flyer of his air miles after he smuggled his overweight cat onboard into the passenger cabin, breaking the airline’s strict pet weight limits. The man would have got away with his ploy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he shared the story in a viral social media post.
