Airline travel for pets is highly regulated, just like it is for humans. The biggest difference, though, is that the rules for pets are intended to make air travel more comfortable, not less — one recent mandate requires that airports have indoor pet “relief areas.”
And yet, in an age where 80 per cent of pet owners refer to their animals as children, there’s still vast room for improvement, both inflight and on the ground. The Ark at JFK, a new, $65 million (U.S.) facility in a 178,000-square-foot warehouse, is one step toward improving the latter experience. It will have a splash pool, overnight kennels and pre-flight micro-chipping services to track your animals. Eventually, this first-of-its-kind service in the U.S. will feature an in-house pet spa, too.
In an important respect, the Ark is streamlining the process of pet travel, rather than revolutionizing it. Its two main services for dogs — shepherding the animals through customs and boarding and caring for them during layovers when necessary — already exist, just in a less efficient form.
“It can be one of those close calls, where a pet owner can get off a flight, get to the cargo facility, go to customs and border control, and do it all themselves,” said Elizabeth A. Schuette, the managing director of the Ark. (Her husband, John J. Cuticelli, Jr., is the project’s developer.) “It’s a big hassle.”
The Ark, on the other hand, positions itself as a one-stop shop. “We can clear customs on behalf of the owners, or use a custom broker,” Schuette said. “It’s changing the process, and advocating for a better one.”
Except for a few, high-profile cases, pets have managed to survive layovers just fine, and most airlines have designated areas for pets, known in the industry as AVI (an abbreviation of the French phrase Animaux Vivant, or “live animals”). But Schuette highlighted some room for improvement: Animals from exotic countries are not usually quarantined, for example.
“They are often not bio-secure,” Schuette added. “And sometimes the airline charges a facility fee that can be up to $75.”
Because the Ark will at first be creating its own market, Schuette said, its prices are fairly reasonable.
“For the Pet Oasis, the basic accommodation fee is $125,” she said, which is about the amount of a regular kennel in Brooklyn. “It’s on the lower side” of the price range, Schuette explained, “because we’re just opening and trying to attract business.”
Once it takes off, though, it will be following an existing business model. There’s a similar facility in Frankfurt where the Lufthansa Group has its Cargo Animal Lounge (Lufthansa says it “welcomes around 110 million passengers per year,” including 14,000 dogs and cats and 2,000 horses). The Ark’s equine component will have stables for importing and exporting racehorses, show horses, and polo ponies, all of which follow relatively predictable schedules. And this is expected to “be bringing in the economic revenue,” Schuette said.
In addition to the Pet Oasis, there is also an Equine & Livestock Export Center and the Aviary In-Transit Quarantine, both of which have just opened; a full-service Import-Export centre for horses, as well as the Ark Aviary, will be ready in a few months. While there, the pets will be fully groomed, tucked in for bed, and allowed to share photos or FaceTime with their owners.
Despite its more elaborate amenities, Schuette is hoping to convince both pet owners and airlines that the Ark is a reasonable amenity rather than an extravagant one. “We’re going to these airlines and meeting with them,” she said. “And talking to them about what’s the best treatment for these animals.”
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