Southwest is a pretty cool airline; while I don't love the no-assigned seat policy, I do respect their no-fee flight changes and quick-witted tweets.
I may just switch my mileage allegiance to this low-budget airline after learning that they flew about 64 orphaned animals from Houston to San Diego this week in order to free up room at local animal shelters.
According to Huff Po, the donated flight transported animals displaced from Hurricane Harvey so that they could find new homes with the help of Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe.
Once the animals were buckled up in the cabin, it was time for take-off. For one little pupper, it was time to suss out the cockpit.
"It took a 'village' of animal-lovers to bring these orphan pets (in shelters with no forever families before the storm hit) to San Diego, to make room for those displaced pets affected by #HurricaneHarvey," the center wrote on their Facebook page. "We're so grateful for 'our village.' Thank you, Southwest Airlines, and your platoon of employee do-gooders, for helping make it happen."
The center has done this before, first after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and again in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey.
“You look at all of those faces and know that their stay at the shelter was meant to be temporary,” the center director of operations Jennifer Shorey told Fox 5 San Diego. “It was supposed to lead them to forever homes, but when something as devastating as a hurricane hits, so much has to be left behind.”
Other states are doing the same, asking locals to foster or adopt animals that have overcrowded Houston's shelters.