After the image below was shared online with the caption “My captain friend sent me this photo… Saudi prince bought ticket for his 80 hawks,” it quickly went viral. After all its not the everyday that you see a bird on a plane, let alone 80 of them all with a seat to their self. As it turns out the birds were travelling on an A330 heading for Jeddah, a city in Saudi Arabia, however the airline they’re travelling on remains unknown.
It was later pointed out that the hawks were in-fact falcons and it’s actually not all that uncommon for them to be transported this way by wealthy people from Arab countries, however 80 falcons at one time is pretty unusual with Airlines such as Qatar Airways even policies in place that limit the number of falcons being transported inside the cabin at any one time to 6.
Even crazier too is that each of the falcons requires its own passport and between 2002 and 2013 the UAE government estimates that it issued more than 28,000 of them, each at a cost of $130. Couple that with the fact that some airlines charge up to $630 per falcon depending on destination and you’ve got yourself one very unusual way to waste a lot of money.
“My captain friend sent me this photo… Saudi prince bought ticket for his 80 hawks”
It’s not the first time, here’s a similar moment filmed in 2014:
