The first pets to travel inside the passenger cabin on a domestic flight in Australia have touched down in Queensland.<\/p>\n
Three dogs were on board the Virgin Australia flight from Melbourne to the Gold Coast on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The journey was the first of many the airline has planned during a three-and-a-half-month trial of a service allowing pet owners to bring their animals into the passenger cabin, rather than flying in the luggage hold on domestic flights.<\/p>\n
During the trial, a limit of four dogs or cats weighing under 8 kilograms will be allowed on permitted flights operating between Melbourne and the Gold and Sunshine Coast airports.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Julija Kinghorn (right) travelled on the inaugural flight with Poppy the six-month-old Papillon. (ABC News: Mackenzie Colahan)<\/p>\n
The trial, announced last month, runs until January 30, 2026, but Virgin hopes to expand the service to all of its eligible domestic flights by the end of next year.<\/p>\n
“This has been a long time coming for us and we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into the execution of getting pets on board with us,” said Virgin’s chief marketing officer, Elizabeth Minogue.<\/p>\n
Part of that consideration has been the reaction of passengers who might not want to sit near other people’s animals.<\/p>\n
Ms Minogue said cats and dogs travelling in the cabin would have to stay inside a carrier for the duration of the flight and would always be located under window seats in rows 18 and 20.<\/p>\n
“When [other passengers] go to book, they can see where the pets are and can choose to sit at the front or the back of the aircraft,” she said.<\/p>\n
Monty the Pomeranian was one of the four dogs on board the first flight.<\/p>\n
His owner, Assem Nachabe, said the two-year-old was “a little rattled” from the vibrations during take-off from Melbourne, but soon settled into the flight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Assem Nachabe says he’s looking forward to more plane flights with his two-year-old Pomeranian Monty.\u00a0 (ABC News: Mackenzie Colahan)<\/p>\n
“It’s an awesome idea \u2026 we’re looking forward to taking him with us inside the cabin for many flights to come,” he said.<\/p>\n
Also on the inaugural flight was Julija Kinghorn with her six-month-old Papillon Polly.<\/p>\n
“There’s so much movement and luggage of all shapes and sizes that I don’t think I even got a second look with Polly in the crate [at the airport],” Ms Kinghorn said.<\/p>\n
The concept of pets on planes is not new \u2014 some major European airlines have allowed cats and dogs in passenger cabins for years.<\/p>\n
Many American airlines also allow passengers to carry pets up to a particular size limit inside the cabin on flights within the United States and even to Mexico and Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
Chief commercial officer for Queensland Airports Limited Adam Rowe said while pets on planes was an “established practice” in other parts of the world, the trial would provide important information on its viability in Australia.<\/p>\n
“It’s a first for Australia, so it’s important that we go through the process to make sure that we are documenting and laying out plans as carefully as we can for the environment we work in,” Mr Rowe said.<\/p>\n
Mr Nachabe and Ms Kinghorn, along with their dogs, travelled courtesy of Virgin Australia and returned to Melbourne from the Gold Coast on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first pets to travel inside the passenger cabin on a domestic flight in Australia have touched down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[132782,3859,25253,64,63,99,132783,2475,2474,16914,58365,2473,1155],"class_list":["post-217272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aeroplane","tag-air-travel","tag-airport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cabin","tag-cats","tag-dogs","tag-domestic","tag-passenger","tag-pets","tag-plane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}