①Petsare

thetrueVIPs

ofthesky...

Accommodatingpetsis oneofJetSuite’s

mostcommonspecialrequestsanda

mainreasonpeopleflyprivate,accord-

ingtoguestservicesdirectorAnaselia

Galli,whorecentlyarrangedtransport

fora rarefeline—anAfricanserval—

estimated to be worth more than

$10,000.Itsowner(notCarolBaskin)

couldn’tfathomflyingcommercial,as

her“giraffecat”wouldn’thaveenough

spacetostretchher2-foot-longlegs.

Once,a coupleevensenttheirpet

privatewhiletheyflewcommercial.

“Theheadofa largehedgefundwas

beingrelocatedandpaid$175,000to

chartera brand-newGulfstreamG450

tomovehisdoganditsnannywhile

theownerandhiswife flewBritish

Airways,”saysPrivéJetsco-founder

IsaacGrimberg,whooftenplaceshis

clientsaboardJetSuiteplanes.

Amongthefrequent-flyingcanines

I bookedwithJetSuitewereMuffin,a

200-pound,codependentgoldendoodle

who must—at all times—have one paw

on her owner, and Mr. Wigglesworth,

a golden retriever whose regular

cross-country flights to a specialty

oncologist have all but ensured that

he’ll outlive us all. At 112 (that’s dog

years, of course), he’s still kicking.

One couple sent their cat to a differ-

ent type of doctor—a cloning specialist,

who included a basket of identical kit-

tens on a return flight months later.

Most impressive, however, was a

family moving to Hawaii with their air-

borne ark of animals: 15 cats, 8 dogs,

5  parrots, and 6  ferrets. (Whenever

feathered creatures are onboard, the

staff lay down tarps to catch their mid-

flight droppings. It’s all very meta.)

Pigs may not fly on JetSuite’s books

(yet), but sometimes ponies do—a pair o

them! The single-most talked-about pet

the team has seen is ... a rat. For years,

Bob the Rat’s owner traveled with her

rodent, cradling him in her arms or let-

ting him scamper around in a laundry

hamper full of her clothes. The one time

Bob’s human went on holiday without

him, she had a vet babysit. “She called

me extremely concerned that Bob didn’t

look well in one of his pictures,” Galli

recalls. “She was right—Bob died a week

later.” We’ll let you guess who spent an

hour and half on rattieratz.com—yes,

that’s a real thing—helping her client

choose a new pet.

BloombergPursuits August 3, 2020

F

or those who can

afford it, private

aviation is an easy

way to bypass the

epic lines at TSA, stale

food court sandwiches,

and those armrest-hogging

seatmates. It also buys an

elusive treasure: extra hours

in the day. Sunrise yoga in

Los Angeles, lunch in Napa,

a show in Vegas—it’s all

doable when the sky isn’t

the limit. As insiders say,

“Jets aren’t aircraft, they’re

time machines.”

These flying miracles

became more accessible

after the 2008 recession,

when membership clubs

began offering UberPool-

like sharing schemes.

Dallas-based JetSuite led

the pack. Its SuiteKey

program is similar to a

debit account for airfare;

the more you deposit, the

deeper your discount. Of

its 900 members, at least

50 have invested $1 million.

Although the pandemic

spurred JetSuite’s parent

company to file for

Chapter 11 in April, the

furloughed staff is hopeful

of a resurgence. That

includes me: Right before

lockdowns arrested the

global travel industry,

I spent a week on JetSuite’s

team, coordinating requests

for Bitcoin billionaires,

searing steaks in the sky—

did you know pilots wear

oxygen masks when the

food is being cooked?—

and cleaning up shockingly

soiled cabins. Here’s a

behind-the-scenes look at

life on a private jet.