SFO employee shares wild facet of processing pets to board planes

A fast method to make an enemy out of a stranger throughout this Thanksgiving journey season is to carry up the safety checkpoint resulting from any sort of mishap — however particularly one with your home pet. 

That’s why a employee with over a decade of expertise at San Francisco International Airport reached out to SFGATE to share ideas for the way to finest journey with a pet. (As an worker of Covenant Aviation Security [CAS], an organization that staffs the TSA checkpoints at SFO, they requested anonymity since they had been advised to not contact the press besides via official channels.) 

In all their years working the checkpoint, they mentioned the hardest animals to course of are, in actual fact, much more home than unique. “At SFO, I have screened cats, dogs, a baby kangaroo, a baby walrus and a baby alligator. The exotic animals belonged to zoo keepers,” the CAS worker mentioned. But the toughest pet to take care of? The humble home cat.

Cats, it seems, someday chew and scratch their house owners when faraway from their provider so a CAS officer can examine it. Moreover, cats are fast and might create a line backup once they scuttle away. 

“Cats, when they are frightened, take off,” the CAS worker mentioned. “That happened on Thursday. I saw a lady run as fast as she could. Somebody else had a frisky dog who wasn’t … ‘house broken.’ Clean up, lane two! And now multiply that by 50 on Thanksgiving weekend.”

The CAS worker mentioned one of the best ways to keep away from this challenge is to acclimate the pet earlier than touring. Practice carrying the animal within the crate just a few occasions in order that it has expertise with the method. Put them within the provider for brief lengths of time to get them aware of it and feeling comfy.

When the time involves undergo airport safety, prearrange with the airline. If the pet is touring with you on the flight, think about using a leash to keep away from having to run after the animal if it will get out. Or worse, in case it sends you to hunt medical remedy earlier than a flight. (Some airways require massive pets to journey within the cargo maintain in a transportable kennel, which is known as “shipping” your pet.) 

“People who travel on holidays are not frequent travelers typically and don’t quite understand that their cat has to be in a carrier for hours,” the CAS worker mentioned. “The headaches for having to send people to a first aid station due to their own pet tearing them up is totally unnecessary.”