Well, it’s taken 6 weeks but finally at time of typing the boys (cats) are finally air bound and heading on their way to sunnier climbs.

We had an E-mail from Airpets advising that they had a preliminary check up by the vet on Friday and they will be having a full preflight check up by the vet on Saturday.

They asked us to contact their offices after 2pm UK time (11pm Perth time) on Saturday to confirm that their final preflight inspection had gone to plan. The news back was positive, both lads received full marks and would therefore be flying out on Sunday.

Since we had the earlier issues when one of the cats failed his preflight check, I never thought to ask the guys at Airpets exactly what time of the day both cats would be flying out second time around.

What I do know though is that both cats were being delivered to the animal check in at Heathrow on Sunday morning so by my rough calculations they probably took off early Sunday afternoon (or early morning today Perth time).

Whatever time of the day they were due to fly out, I reckon they should be en-route to Singapore at time of typing (and hopefully sleeping soundly).

I have read quite a bit about the conditions that pets and other general livestock fly in, in commercial airlines. Predominately the area within the aircraft where the pets are kept is kept dark to keep the animals calm (although I’m unsure how this helps cats with their super sonic night vision).

Temperature wise its pretty much the same as the temperature within the main section of the aircraft.

I’m not sure how the source of this information knows this (perhaps they hid in a box) but allegedly most animals sleep throughout the whole journey. I’m unsure if that last snippet of information is taken from the days when animals used to be sedated when flying long haul (which they no longer are) but having looked at the chilled out state of the cats when they spent nearly 3.5 hours driving from Bradford to Heathrow I can kind of understand where this theory comes from.

Both of ours cats moaned and grumbled in their own catty way for the first hour of our journey down to Heathrow. Once they realised that they weren’t going to get out of their cat boxes despite their vocal representations they simply gave up the fight and bedded down for the journey.

Even on our bumpy roads and motorways both cats slept for a good part of the journey down to Airpets. Although we’re talking just under 4 instead of 24 hours I’d hope that the smoother passage associated with flight would help contribute towards a trouble free and hopefully stress free journey for both cats.

I’m just looking forward to getting both cats home. Then the whole family will be back together again.

Finally I know that I keep on raving about Airpets but they really have been great. The communication continues to come back at regular intervals and hopefully we have all done everything we can to contribute towards a safe journey to Aus for our feline buddies.