An Indian entrepreneur has comes up with an ingenious and ultra expensive way to reunite pet owners with the pets they had to leave behind in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic – an all-pet charter plane to fly the animals back to their owners.
Deepika Singh, a young entrepreneur and cyber security researcher in Mumbai, came up with the idea of an all-pet chartered plane when she was arranging a jet to fly in some relatives from Delhi. Some of them wanted to travel with their pets, but the others refused, so she ended up having to look for another plane for them. She realized that she couldn’t have been the only one to experience this issue, so she devised a plan to reunite pets abandoned during the national lockdown with their owners, without cramming them in cargo shipments.
Photo: Angelina Litvin/Unsplash
Singh got in touch with private jet aggregator Accretion Aviation, and managed to secure a six-seater private jet for an all-pet flight from Mumbai to Delhi, at a total cost of 9.06 lakh (about $12,000). The price per ticket was set at 1.6 lakh (about $2,100), but if the 25-year-old entrepreneur fails to find six passengers, it will be even higher. Despite the hefty price, four tickets have already been sold, so only 2 seats remain available.
“I did not care about money. They are like my children. I miss them terribly,” fifty-eight-year-old Harvinder Kaur, the owner of two 14-month-old Shih Tzus stranded in Delhi, told The Print.
“Deepika has spoken to four pet owners. As soon as we get two more pets, we will start the preparations. At the latest, the plane will be ready to fly in the second week of this month,” Rahul Muchhal, the owner of Accretion Aviation, said, adding that all necessary COVID-19 precautions will be followed for the animals as well as their handlers.
Photo: Pixabay
The animals will travel in cages, but because the flight is expected to take several hours, Deepika Singh managed to hire some human carers to accompany the pampered pets on their journey.
So we are waiting for two more pet passengers. The six seaters are for human passengers and most of these jets accommodate roughly 75 kg per passenger that adds up to 450 kg or more but these are tiny pets. So many more could fit in, Singh told the Mumbai Mirror.
It’ll be interesting to see how many pet owners end up paying over $2,000 per ticket to be reunited with their beloved animals. The all-pet plane is scheduled to take off from Delhi to Mumbai in mid June.
