The anatomy of the breed influenced the death of a pug on the flight Phuket – St. Petersburg

The head doctor of the Fauna veterinary hospital, Natalya Solovyova, noted that pugs, due to a certain structure of their muzzle, experience breathing problems and can be unstable to stress.

Air travel in the hold may be unsafe for these dogs. emphasized expert on the radio station “Moscow Speaks”:

“Don’t blame the airline. Because a pug dog could, simply because of the situation in which it found itself, experience severe stress. Due to her anatomical structure, she could have developed severe respiratory failure. You don’t even need to change the temperature for this. This breed is nervous, it is dangerous to carry it in a car over long distances, and then there is a flight from Phuket to St. Petersburg. This dog, one might say, was in flight and was sentenced to this. I don’t know what the persistent desire was to transport a dog of this breed in the luggage compartment,” comments Natalya Solovyova. In general, it is undesirable to transport dogs by plane, especially for brachycephalic animals and animals with cardiac pathology, the veterinarian emphasized.

Aeroflot comment:

Based on the situation that happened a week ago, an inspection was carried out with the transportation of Frank the pug by the airline. Throughout the flight, the temperature in the luggage compartment, where the carrier with the pug was located, was maintained at 21-22 degrees Celsius, set and maintained by the aircraft commander, as evidenced by objective control data. Upon arrival, no external damage to the carrier was detected. There were no complaints against the airline from the owners. The airline additionally contacted airport handling operators to obtain detailed information about all stages of transporting the animal on board and from the aircraft, and requested information about the conditions for the animal being at the airport immediately before departure.

The airline regrets what happened to Frank. All involved airline services treat the transportation of animals with increased attention and care, and implement measures to control their transportation by airport services, understanding that the flight is stressful for the animal. In addition, Frank the pug is a brachycephalic breed, which is not recommended for transportation by air due to its physiological characteristics, and many airlines around the world do not accept these dog breeds for transportation. Due to numerous requests from passengers, Aeroflot has been allowing brachycephalic dogs for transportation for several years, but always pays attention to the characteristics of this breed and additionally informs the owners – the airline agent in Phuket also informed Frank’s owners during the registration of transportation at check-in. The airline strongly recommends that pet owners, before making a decision to transport an animal, carefully read the information on transporting brachycephalic dogs posted on the official website. It should be noted that in 2023, more than 135 thousand animals were successfully transported on the airline’s flights, of which more than 37 thousand were in the luggage compartment.