I feel that I need to mark today’s 2nd anniversary of arriving back on home soil from Hong Kong on a 36 year-old Gulfstream jet. What a journey that was!
For context, the approved scheduled airlines for carrying pets between HK and the UK had put their pet cargo prices up by as much as 900% after the 2019 protests, rendering it unaffordable for most expat families to take their pets home with them at the end of their contracts (or, in panic, before that.) We heard heartbreaking stories of beloved 13 year old dogs being left behind in shelters or simply abandoned. The Covid pandemic, the stringent HK quarantine and the resulting drop in plane traffic only exacerbated the situation. Even when you could book your pet onto a flight to Germany it could be cancelled at short notice in favour of air cargo that now had to take priority.
There we were, nearing the end of our time in Hong Kong with two elderly dogs, one of whom was now too large to be carried in the hold. It felt like we were waiting for Oscar to die before we could come home.
And then we discovered a company, Pet Holidays that, pre-pandemic, had specialised in holiday transportation by private jet for the pampered furbabies of Very Rich Hongkongers and that was now offering an escape route for my dogs flying in the cabin with me. Long story short, and delayed by 30 hours due to the Ukraine war re-routing, 8 dogs, 2 cats and 10 humans of whom I was the only non-Cantonese speaker arrived at London Farnborough Airport.
It was a flight distinctly lacking in glamour, Champagne or culinary delicacies. The 16 hour flight, with an hour of refuelling in Kazakhstan, was punctuated by rice and egg and a sandwich; one of the two shouty chihuahuas on board bit the cabin crew even before take off and yelled at the poor rescue dog standing terrified all the way every time he moved. It’s not something I’d repeat. Our Raffles panted and scratched his crate all the way but old Oscar was patient and calm. They were so happy to relieve themselves finally on British grass once we’d cleared our formalities onboard.
Yes, it was expensive, but probably cost less than the inflated prices demanded by the traditional airlines at that time. I am truly privileged to have been in a position to bring my dogs home. A close friend at the time told me that she thought it obscene that I had not had them euthanised rather than spend so much money bringing them home. We no longer talk.
Yet, the look on my darling Oscar’s face when I carefully pushed him in his dog buggy into his park and his woods in Beckenham the next morning, a sunny Good Friday, made it all worth it. I had thought that he’d never return home to Beckenham, that I’d have to leave him over there, and here he was wagging his tail and grinning. From being a virtual prisoner of his arthritis and laryngeal paralysis staring at the stairwell of our Discovery Bay house most of the day, he regained fresh air, gentle sunshine, the woods and the flowers. He was so happy and I was grateful to be able to offer him his best life again for six months before he died. They’re family, you see, and you don’t leave family behind.
