Forgotten in the cargo hold This chick becomes a frequent flyer when moving her family
A New Zealand chick has involuntarily clocked up a lot of air miles. Moving her owners to Australia became an odyssey for the animal - and revealed completely new character traits.
The most important facts at a glance
- A woman wants to move from New Zealand to Australia with her son and her pet.
- On arrival, the animal stays on the plane and flies back immediately.
- After a short stopover in her old home country, the Maine Coone cat set off again and after a total flight time of more than 22 hours, got some well-earned cuddles.
There, back and there again: it took much longer than planned for Mittens to arrive at her new home. The pussy, a stately Maine Coone cat, was overlooked in the cargo hold of a plane - and traveled back and forth between New Zealand and Australia three times within 24 hours.
Owner Margo Neas has now made the story public, telling the New Zealand Herald that she waited for the feline to be retrieved from the hold after the flight from Christchurch to her new home in Melbourne on January 13. Three hours had passed without her being reunited with Mittens.
Then the ground staff at the airport told her that the plane was already on its seven-and-a-half-hour journey back to New Zealand. "I said: How can this happen? How can this happen? Oh, my God," Neas recalled.
Forgotten in the cargo hold
The pilot of the Air New Zealand plane was informed about the extra passenger while still in the air and turned on the heating in the cargo hold to make Mittens comfortable, as Neas reported.
She was told that a wheelchair stowed in the cargo hold had obstructed the view of the cat box. "It wasn't a great start to our new life in Melbourne because we didn't have the family, we weren't complete."
But the odyssey had a happy ending. The company that had organized the animal transport picked Mittens up on her return to Christchurch and made sure that she was able to fly to Melbourne again - and this time was allowed to get off the plane there.
Mittens lost a little weight in her jetsetting experience, but was otherwise unscathed. "She just ran into my arms and snuggled into them," said Neas. It was the "biggest cuddle ever". "It was just such a relief.
Extra cuddles after the odyssey
Air New Zealand said it would reimburse all costs associated with Mittens' trip and apologized for the inconvenience. "We will work closely with our ground handler in Melbourne to ensure this does not happen again," said spokeswoman Alisha Armstrong.
Mittens, who according to her owner is not normally particularly affectionate, was "cuddlier than ever" after the triple trip, Neas said. "The cat is getting as much attention as she wants at the moment because we are just so absolutely and utterly relieved to have her back."
