When traveling by airplane, larger dogs are typically required to travel in the cargo hold of the aircraft. However, in a recent incident, some dogs traveling on Turkish Airlines received some serious VIP treatment, and there was a very good reason for this.
According to information provided to Thrillist by Turkish Airlines, the airline has been providing rescue dogs that have been assisting with earthquake recovery efforts in Turkey with upgrades to cabin seating (and in some cases, business-class seating) for their flights back to their home countries.
Twitter users started noticing rescue dogs flying in the cabin toward the end of the previous month. They credited Turkish Airlines for their treatment of the VIP pups, which are trained to rescue people from disaster areas.
The airline said in a statement that providing this treatment was “the least we could do to show our appreciation for these heroic dogs’ sincere and heroic efforts.” This statement was provided to Thrillist.
We fly our heroes, the rescue teams along with their dogs, which are let to sit in cabin (in business class as well as in economy class) for this period, the airline said in a statement. “As we have been experiencing an extraordinary period within our evacuation operations due to earthquakes centered in our eastern regions and affecting all of our country and nation, we fly our heroes, the rescue teams along with their dogs.”
More than 50,000 people have lost their lives as a result of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria a month ago, prompting the governments of both countries to declare a state of national emergency that will last for the next three months. As of a news release dated February 20, Turkish Airlines, which is the national airline of Turkey, had assisted with aid efforts by transporting 238,112 search and rescue personnel on aid flights, as well as evacuating 230,980 affected individuals and transporting more than 15,000 tons of aid material to areas that were affected.
