BARK Air: The First Airline For Dogs, Flying Gulfstreams

BARK Air’s fares are expensive but fair

So, how much does BARK Air charge for tickets? Obviously it’s very expensive, since we’re talking about operating a Gulfstream with at most 10 passengers.

Based on the current schedule filing, the company is flying once every week between New York and Los Angeles, and the fare is $6,000 one-way.

Meanwhile the company is flying once every two weeks between New York and London, and the fare is $8,000 one-way.

At least the fares include a lot, and BARK Air even offers complimentary chauffeur service. It’s also impressive that the New York to Los Angeles route already seems to be sold out for some weeks.

It goes without saying that this is pricey, so this isn’t for your average person looking for a getaway with their dog. At the same time, given the cost of operating a Gulfstream on a flight of this length, the pricing is as reasonable as it could be. If every seat is sold, BARK Air would get $60K of revenue on a New York to Los Angeles flight, or $80K of revenue on a New York to London flight. That’s roughly what you’d expect the charter cost to be for a Gulfstream G5.

We need more innovation with pet travel

So many startups don’t actually bring anything unique to the table, and don’t solve any problems that exist. BARK Air deserves credit for actually addressing a gap in the market — how to travel with pets in a safe way.

In the United States, the reality is that there are a few ways you can travel by air with your pet:

• If you have a small dog, you can travel with them in the cabin, in a carrier; that’s a perfectly good solution
• If you have a bigger dog than that, the only way to travel with them is to have them in a crate in the cargo hold; I don’t want to say that’s cruel, but it’s really sad how often things go wrong, and that says nothing of the anxiety dogs experience
• The “loophole” for traveling with bigger dogs in the cabin is that some people will designate them as psychiatric support animals, allowing them to fly in the cabin at no cost

So much attention regarding traveling with pets is about how people use the psychiatric support animal loophole, or about how some people just can’t be without their dogs, even for a weekend trip.

To me, this completely misses the point. Despite a majority of American households having pets, airlines have done almost nothing to innovate and make it possible to travel in a safe and semi-comfortable way with a larger pet.

There are all kinds of legitimate situations where you need to travel with a pet, whether you’re moving permanently, whether you have a family emergency and need to relocate somewhere for an extended period of time, etc.

So I commend BARK Air for addressing a need that exists, and I hope the company succeeds. I hope this inspires the major airlines to come up with something that’s less cruel for transporting pets (though I’m not holding my breath).

To be clear, I’m not saying that an unlimited number of dogs of all sizes should be allowed in the cabins of commercial aircraft at no cost. But how about letting people buy several extra seats, and then having crates in which they can travel in the cabin next to their owner.

It says a lot about the demand in the market that Gulfstreams are booking out weeks in advance to carry dogs between coasts.

Bottom line

BARK Air is a new company offering Gulfstream flights from New York to both Los Angeles and London. The company is going specifically after people looking to travel with their dogs, given the lack of options that otherwise exist.

This is a great first step to address the demand for pet travel, though hopefully we see this expanded in the future, in a way that’s affordable for more people.

What do you make of BARK Air?