Is it a bird, is it a plane? On a recent Singapore Airlines flight, it was one inside the other.
Business-class passengers on the overnight SQ322 flight from Singapore to London on January 7 had an unexpected fellow traveler in the form of a mynah.
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The mynah, a bird native to South Asia, is considered a good pet because of its chatty nature. It also possesses the best avian mimicry of human speech, second only to the gray parrot, according to the Spruce Pets website.
Depending on demand, a one-way business class ticket on the popular Singapore to London route can cost around $4,000, or around $6,000 return, according to Singapore Airlines's website.
In a video posted to Facebook, the bird is seen on top of a passenger's headrest during the last two hours of a 14-hour overnight journey. One of the cabin crew is seen trying to grab it as it manages to avoid being captured.
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A spokesman for the airline said the situation was dealt with and that the bird was handed over to animal quarantine authorities when the aircraft finally landed.
"It was subsequently caught by cabin crew with the assistance of some of the passengers on board," said the spokesman, The Straits Times reported.
It is not clear where the bird was hiding for the first 12 hours of the flight. Newsweek has contacted Singapore Airlines for further comment.
The rules on animals on flights vary from airport to airport but are usually strict. Last month, a student at the University of Colorado was forced by Southwest Airlines to leave her pet fish behind when she was flying from Denver to San Diego.
In May 2018, nearly a ton of shark fins from an endangered species was seized from a Singapore Airlines cargo shipment to Hong Kong which is clamping down on the trade. The airline blacklisted the shipper and said it would step up sampling checks.
Meanwhile, last weekend, a man carried a gun through security and onto his Delta flight to Japan during a security lapse at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more
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