Bark Air is a high end startup airline for dogs flying Gulfstream G5s between New York, LA and London. Its first revenue flight was May 23.

Pet Airways failed, so an entrepreneur decided that if only that effort had been much more expensive it could have a chance.

Each Talon Air-operated flight holds up to 15 dogs and owners, operating from private terminals – with no crates or carriers and toys, blankets, and treats. When buying a $6,000 one-way from New York to LA for a dog, their human flies free.

For New York service, Bark Air operates out of Westchester County airport near White Plains, and the County is suing to stop them. It’s not the dogs they object to. It’s that Westchester County has an airport at all.

Credit: Bark Air

The airport adopted rules that any carrier with more than 9 seats that sells seats to the public has to operate out of the main terminal. That’s not something Westchester cared about when other Part 380 operators flew from FBOs there. It became an issue after JSX, which currently operates Westchester to Opa Locka in North Miami, launched at the airport during the pandemic.

Bark Air says the airport’s rules for human passengers shouldn’t apply to them. The county is seeking an injunction to force Bark Air to comply with the rules or face operational shutdown at HPN.

• In 2022, Westchester sued Blade, JSX, and XO for selling flights with more than 9 seats while using private terminals at the airport.

• The Westchester Airport’s Terminal Use Agreement requires commercial airlines to operate from that terminal, and restricts carriers to a lottery system for flights and passenger limitation restrictions.

• Blade and XO had been operating out of private terminals, not subject to the Terminal Use Agreement, since 2020. JSX began operating there in June 2020.

The airport adopted a new policy in January 2022 that required these carriers to operate out of the main terminal, with TSA screening rather than handling their own screening according to TSA-approved procedures. Then in March 2022 they sued, but entered into an agreement not to enforce their rule until they had obtained a court order from their suit (this allowed the airport to avoid a preliminary injunction against them, while the courts sort out whether these airport rules violate federal law).

White Plains airport generally is hostile to air travel, bending to influential residents who complain about noise. While some suggest that the change is related to JSX’s entry into the market, it may also be the result of a turnover in County Executive (or a combination of both – we’ve seen big airlines try to get JSX booted from airports elsewhere, colluding to limit competition).

The current Westchester County Executive, who took over in 2018, has been broadly hostile to any expanded use of the airport – including denying FBO operator Million Air the ability to construct a new terminal to which it was contractually entitled for reasons deemed not to be “reasonable as a matter of law.”

When Bark Air says “we don’t believe this will impact our operations” that’s because the airport isn’t attempting to enforce the rule they’re suing Bark Air over. The legal costs can’t help the startup, though, regardless of the outcome of the suit.