It’s a falcon, Richard

Somebody tweeted a link to this rather odd story the other day, which mainly reminded me of something I’d been meaning to write about for a while, which is: falcons on aeroplanes.

You see, it turns out that in the middle-east, the falcon is a highly regarded pet, and so it’s common (well, maybe not exactly common) for people in the region to want to travel with them. To fly with them, to be precise.

So in addition to the usual rules on flying with liquids, lithium batteries and walking sticks, several middle-eastern carriers have falcon-specific rules on their websites.

Royal Jordanian has a whole falcon section on its ‘pets’ page:

Etihad’s is smaller but it’s there:

Emirates relegates the falcon to a single mention:

While Qatar, apparently not mentioning falcons at all, actually has a whole page about them:

What’s the point of all this? Nothing, really, except that this note at the end of RJ’s falcon carriage page amused me:

Important Notice

Charges
One falcon is charged three times the normal excess baggage rate. More than one falcon per handler will require the booking of an adjacent seat.

Maximum: two falcons per seat.

Max number of falcons per aircraft type

• Narrow bodied aircraft: 10 FALCONS

• Wide bodied aircraft: 15 FALCONS

In case you’re wondering about the title of this post…