What It's Like to Fly Bark Air, the First-in-Class Airline for Dogs (and Their People)

Vogue

a day ago

Some background: I am a dog person of, I would say, exceptionally good standing, meaning I have been devoted to mine, Hugo (a wonderful golden retriever, my frequent subject, and the obliging blonde of the above paragraph), for the near entirety of the 11-plus years of his life. When we lived in New York, my partner and I drove many miles and hours out of our way over the years to ferry him to his (human) grandparents in Massachusetts and Michigan, respectively, and have driven many thousands more getting him back and forth across the country since we moved to Los Angeles four years ago. We three have driven cross-country at least five separate times, with stops in our nation's wonderful national parks (pet-friendly up to a point) and some of its weirder roadside attractions. He has swum in all of the Great Lakes except one (Lake Erie, it's just never been convenient) and has stayed in many of the finer hotels across our great nation—the perks of having an occasional travel writer as a mother.
Hugo loves people, food (either stolen or given), attention, and the windows down. He is the apple of our eye. He is also, not uncomplicatedly for him, about to be a big brother to a human sibling, due late next month. Sometimes I massage his ears and look into the limpid caramel-colored pools of his eyes and try to explain to him that things are about to change. Sometimes I catch my partner doing the same, except I hear promises like 'you'll always be my number one.' Either way, this summer felt something like a not-last-but-significant hurrah for Hugo, the swan song of his only-child-hood. And so when the human components of our triad planned our summer vacation—road-tripping through northern Spain, a diversion to London and Wales for the opening night of the Oasis tour in Cardiff, and catching up with friends and family on the East Coast—we knew we didn't want to leave him behind for the entire month. But we also knew taking 10-plus days on either end to drive him to-and-fro my parents' house for his own summer break wasn't going to work either.
Of course, I considered commercial airlines first. Hugo has met certain specifications that have allowed him to fly with me and not as cargo, but these specifications seem to change all the time with little warning and rarely without stress (on my part). As a 65-pound dog, he is tolerated on these flights but not exactly welcomed on an institutional level, and neither of us is made particularly comfortable in the process. (Admittedly, this feels true for most human fliers these days too.) Also, and this is probably due to some indulgent pet parenting, he won't use the pet-relief area in most airports, but especially not at LAX, where they are more often than not dank, airless rooms that smell to even a human nose like armageddon. So flying the five-plus hours (not including relief-break-less wait-around-the-airport time) from Los Angeles to New York is not always the easiest or the most practical solution, especially for an aging pup. Until, that is, I heard about Bark Air.