Pet Airways - Are we missing out on a niche market in Canada

[OceansEdge]

Pet Airways: Interesting concept, a) you can fit a lot more dog/cat kennels in an aircraft than people b) pet owners would (and do) love it, c) could likely keep the cost of the tickets in the same ballpark as a passenger ticket and still make money. I know for folks with bigger dogs especially (I own Newfs), pet travel can be a real problem. One plane, work east to west on Monday, west to east on Tuesday - no flights on Sunday. Its a model I could actually see working.

Of course the pita of getting an OC for it could be a pain, but really from a TC standpoint - it's just another cargo run right?

[oldtimer]

IATA publishes not only a manual for the transportation of dangerous goods but a manual for the transportation of live animals so technically, it can be done. Now whether it can be done economically is another question.
Vancouver to Newfyjohn in a Metro would be a challenge.
I might even come out of retirement to do a trip or two!!! MAYBE.

[Slappy the Squirrel]

http://www.petairways.com/

The yanks do it!

[petpad]

Love it... of course I would...

[Panama Jack]

Pedpad. Is that the 4-legged version of a "Manpad"?

I appreciate the problems pet-owners face with shipping their 4-legged family friends. In the last few months I have had to bump numerous animals because the environmental conditions they would face in the cargo hold exceeded the Limitations stated in the AOM for the type I fly. Other times it was very marginal and I often wondered in what shape they would arrive at the destination.

I just wonder if there would be enough steady business and yield to support such an operation.

[OceansEdge]

My thought was initially - perhaps a '27 cargo hop run sorta thing - YYT, YQM, YQB, YUL, YYZ, YQT, YWG, YQR, YYC, YVR, YYJ - Mon, Wed, Fri, and the return trips on Tues, Thurs, Sat. Something like that

I'm sure pet owners - especially of large dogs (I'm a Newf owner myself), would be quite willing to pay rates similar to the cost of their own ticket for their pet to travel. From what I'm seeing in the pet forums - lots of people really loving the idea in the US. Here in Newfoundland the only way to get my dog to Nova Scotia with us is to a) ship him cargo .... expensive and not as safe as I'd like, or b) a 7 - 18 hour ferry crossing (depending on which crossing) where he has to spend the whole time locked in the car. Neither one is a comfortable option. The idea of a pressurized, heated cabin flight, with an on-board attendant, and attendants at the FBO's would be appealing. Especially if you've read any of the media nightmare stories of lost or dead animals on other carriers. I could see a market for a service like this.

I could even see one of the regular cargo carriers, or charter companies that already have OCs in place doing something like this - having an offshoot service with say one or two aircraft dedicated to it, would minimize the start up costs. Honestly if someone was interested in even trying to do something like it, I'd *love* to be in on the ground floor of building a specialized service like that.

[StudentPilot]

If there is such a demand why haven't recent airliner design incorporated a small, climate controlled, ventilated cargo area for pets? If there are few/no pets on board toss some bags in there and there would be little lost space one would think.

[ahramin]

Most widebody aircraft can control temperature in some or all of the cargo holds. The problem is on the ground in hot climates it's sometimes beyond the cooling capabilities of the aircraft or ground cooling system. This is true for the cabin as well as the cargo holds, and the cargo holds have last priority for cooling air.

[Panama Jack]

Correct, Ahramin. I keep having to bump pets off my airplane because the ground temperatures routinely exceed the 30 degree celcius or the 35 degree celcius limitation in the AOM of the type I fly. The less the cargo, the higher the temperature limitation. And as you said, this is with an air conditioned cargo hold.

Then on the longer flights we sometimes have to worry about the inflight temperature limitation which paradoxically, the greater the load the lower the outside temperature can be. On a recent flight I was able to take a cat, and all along it was all a very marginal operation. Even though the shipper paid a fair amount of money to ship the animal, I wonder whether it was commercially profitable in the end for our airline because I was unable to step-climb to a more fuel efficient altitude because we are already at one degree below the minimum allowed for the shipping of live animals. Were it any other cat I would have bumped her too but it belonged to the Maintenance guy who was moving and he understood that the animal was being shipped right at the very fringes of the envelope. I was pleased that when we arrived at our destination the animal looked to be in good condition.

I am not sure that enough yield could be made with a 727 operation, or that the operating costs of a 727 are fully appreciated. From the looks of the pet airline site, it looks like they are using some old turboprops. I am sure the animals are less bothered by the props versus jet appeal as human pax.

[niss]

Pedpad. Is that the 4-legged version of a "Manpad"?

I'm pretty sure this is a pedpad.

[Panama Jack]

Nice set of wheels you got, Niss.

[niss]

Nice set of wheels you got, Niss.

Meh, it gets me laid.

[ahramin]

Just finished listening to an NPR podcast where they mentioned a lady who bought the first commercially cloned dog. Dogs actually, a litter of five cloned from one dog. Done in South Korea and the lady wandered around they airplane for a week trying to find 4 people who would pretend that the dogs were service dogs. No takers so in the end she did the trip 5 times, each time claiming the dog was a service animal.