If you clicked on this story, you probably want to know what the hell 80 majestic hawks are doing flying on a commercial plane like it’s no biggie.
*rolls up sleeves*
WELL, do I have a story for YOU.
The baffling image was posted to Reddit by user ‘Lensoo’, who said “my captain friend sent me this”.
He claimed that a Saudi prince bought individual plane tickets for his harem of hawks (or falcons, depending on how much you know about birds of prey) so they could be transported to an unknown destination on a Qatar Airways flight.
It’s blown the fuck up on Reddit because I guess it’s not something you see in your average airplane cabin, but the transportation of falcons on Middle Eastern airlines is actually pretty standard practice.
Qatar allows up to six of the birds to be accompanied in economy class, with prices ranging from AU$150 to Au$825 per flapper depending on the destination – but there’s a lot more than six in this particular photo, which suggests their owner may have been granted special privileges i.e. those of a prince.
Birds of prey even have their own passports in the United Arab Emirates, as one Redditor explained.
“For those wondering, this is probably one of the gulf states royal families going hunting. Stuff like this is common to a lesser degree in the Gulf on regular flights. If you fly Etihad or Emirates or Qatar enough you will eventually see someone flying in first class with a falcon sitting next to them. They have their own passports so they can travel for hunting and there are special laws in the gulf states to prevent discrimination against falcons (seriously). In the UAE, it’s actually illegal to deny a falcon and it’s owner basic accommodation. So if a falconer comes into Starbucks and requests a chair for his falcon, you have to give it to him and let the falcon sit there in the store.”
Wondering which of the cabin crew draws the world’s shortest straw and has to clean up mountains of bird shit after a long-haul flight?
The birds are actually placed on cloths so their poop is easy to dispose of, and their feet are tied together so they can’t fly about the cabin because that would be both terrifying and dangerous.
Ornithophobes need not board.
Source and photo: Reddit / Lensoo.
