A bald eagle was set to fly Delta Air Lines from San Francisco to Atlanta on Tuesday. It was escorted by a professional falconer, who had the eagle out in the aisle while passengers filmed and took selfies with it.
The bald eagle preboarded. However there was an issue with its cage, and a passenger reports it “had to exit before takeoff.”
Knoxville airport reported recently that two bald eagles were headed to California, “flying in the cabin with their crates buckled into seats.” Basically it’s ‘cabin cargo’ secured in the crate. It’s not a bird roaming the cabin. And it’s not an “emotional support eagle.”
Here’s a bald eagle being screened at Charlotte airport. TSA said the airline told them ahead of time to expect it and the eagle and its handler from World Bird Sanctuary went through screening like “any other animal.” The bird flies commercially several times a year to appearances.
You usually can’t legally possess or transport a bald eagle without federal authorization. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act makes it a crime to “take, possess…[or] transport” bald eagles without a permit fro mthe U.S. Forest and Wildlife Service.
Animal acceptance is airline policy (outside of service animals). Normally a pet must remain inside their kennel. This isn’t a pet in cabin situation. Instead, it’ll generally be in a crate that should be strapped to a seat. However, here the handler brought it out for photos on the way off the aircraft.
Birds travel differently in the Mideast, though. About ten years ago a Saudi prince bought actual tickets for his falcons. In other words, each one had their own seat. These were not emotional support falcons hitching a ride for free. And there were 80 of them on the aircraft.
Falcons fly in the Mideast all the time. Each airline in the region has their own falcon policy. Here are passengers casually boarding with their falcons.
Folks two dudes just boarded my plane with emotional support falcons pic.twitter.com/lHABg8A7La
— The Tajikistahn Dahn (@DonnieDoesWorld) March 29, 2019
Here’s another flight where falcons took up the whole cabin.
If you buy a falcon a ticket the airline allows them bring one dead animal on the plane because they’re permitted one carrion. When the whole plane is taken up by falcons, common practice is for the inflight movie to be Angry Birds.
The carrion joke was pretty good.