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Animal Farm
Kirby's Korner · December 8, 2000

My colleague Cheap Charlie recently wrote about one airline's first-class treatment of a pig, concluding that "potbellied pigs seem to be treated better than 73-year-old human being grandmothers."

He didn't know the half of it.

It turns out that to get truly top-of-the-line service during flights, you have to have black and white fur and adorable, button-like eyes.

In short, it helps if you're a giant panda.

The National Zoo in Washington, part of the Smithsonian Institution, received two giant pandas from China this week on a 10-year loan. In return, the zoo is paying China $10 million to expand and improve the China Research and Conservation Center's giant panda habitat and for other long-term panda conservation efforts.

FedEx Express transported Tian Tian and Mei Xiang from the CRCC to National Zoo, complete with ground service from the Center to Chengdu, China, and a police-escorted caravan from Dulles International Airport to the zoo.

Included in the caravan was a FedEx truck carrying the pandas' luggage. "I didn't know pandas had luggage," the truck's driver, Dominic Gorruso, told the press.

The lengthy flight involved a layover in Anchorage, Alaska, including the normal customs hassles. But, according to Federal Express, "U.S. Customs officials, mindful of the sensitivity of the cargo, expedited their procedures and, within 90 minutes, the pandas were airborne."

The trip itself, aboard a specially painted MD-11 jet dubbed "FedEx PandaOne," was pleasant enough. Each panda had its own white custom steel container, large enough for the animal to stand up and turn around in, and complete with ample ventilation.

When was the last time you got that type of personal space and air flow flying on a coach ticket?

Now, I can spend an entire flight doing nothing more than staring out the window, so that's one aspect of flying I'd miss under the conditions the pandas enjoyed. On the other hand, as magician Penn Jillette said in disparaging performer David Blaine's recent "human popsicle" escapade, "Give me an easy chair and a copy of War and Peace, and I'll stay in there forever."

Tian Tian and Mei Xiang had ample comfort food -- pounds and pounds of bamboo, fresh apples, and piles of preprocessed biscuits. All foods reportedly were easier to chew than the rubber chicken I had on my last flight.

The pandas were active during the flight and actually dozed while clearing customs -- situations the rest of us can only dream of.

"They ate a lot, they slept a lot, and they were playing around back there" during the flight, said pilot Mike Padron.

Best of all, the pandas took the trip for free; FedEx picked up the tab, and other companies and organizations have donated the rest of the funding necessary to keep the creatures in Washington for 10 years.

As a resident of the Washington area, I hope you'll stop in to visit Tian Tian and Mei Xiang the next time you're in the neighborhood, once they go on display in January. But I hope you'll also compare your flight to Washington with the one the two pandas took.

It's a safe bet you won't have had as much an opportunity to pig out.

David Kirby is the senior editor at the start-up company iJET Travel Intelligence and was the founding editor of Interactive Travel Report. His column appears on Friday. You can reach him at david@ticked.com.