Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
"Private jet for your pet" is the kind of phrase you might expect to hear from a movie star or media mogul.
But in 2022 Hong Kong, it's just as likely to be a regular person looking into this very unusual expense.
Many people who are moving away from the financial hub have been unable to secure flights out of the city for their dogs and cats, leading to online groups where desperate pet parents try to pool their money to cover the cost of renting a charter plane.
Hong Kong has some of the world's strictest COVID-19 policies. Nearly all non-residents are barred from entering the city, while locals who leave and then come back are subject to three-week quarantines, which can be in expensive hotels or at government quarantine facilities -- even if they test negative for the virus multiple times.
As a result, some 40 per cent of expats polled in 2021 said that they were considering leaving the city for good and permanently relocating themselves and their families elsewhere.
Olga Radlynska is the Hong Kong-based founder and director of Top Stars Air, a private aviation company.
She says Top Stars has pivoted more of its business away from private flights for business executives and toward group rentals for pet flights.
"People have to move one way, and they have to move the pets," she says. "Sometimes the fur parents have already relocated but the pets are still here."
The clientele of these charter companies has also changed. Now, it's working-class and middle-class people who are desperate for options in a city where the commercial airline industry is on life support.
Radlynska estimates that her company's pet transport business has grown "700 per cent" since the beginning of the pandemic. Fewer than 1 per cent are people trying to bring their pets into Hong Kong.
And it isn't just dogs and cats on board. Radlynska says that Top Stars has also transported hamsters and rabbits, while Jolie Howard, CEO of charter jet broker L'Voyage, says that her company has handled requests to transport birds and turtles.
These pleas grew louder after more than 2,500 small animals were euthanized in Hong Kong after a single case of the Delta variant was linked from a hamster to a pet store employee.
Another private aviation company headquartered in Hong Kong, Life Travel, tells CNN that currently 98 per cent of its flights are relocation flights.
Before the pandemic, its primary offering was charters to and from Japan. Now, though, it has pivoted to the relocation business and operates one-way routes from Hong Kong to Japan, the U.K. and Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Top Star's busiest routes are, in order, London, Singapore, the United States, Canada and Australia.
It isn't only constantly changing COVID-19 travel restrictions that have affected pet travel.
Some commercial airlines have strict policies about how animals can travel -- some require larger animals to be put in kennels and/or flown in cargo, and some do not want to take on the risk of flying a snub-nosed dog breed like the popular French bulldogs due to the higher likelihood of health issues in the sky.
Howard of L'Voyage had plenty of experience flying pets on board private planes before the pandemic, but tells CNN that pet owners have become more and more desperate as Hong Kong cancels flights and bans different airlines.
"Pets are part of the family," she says. "A lot of people are waiting 12 months for a flight. From what I understand there are a few thousand animals (in Hong Kong) waiting to get on flights to their owners."
She says that half of L'Voyage's business is now pet-related.
Private aviation companies like L'Voyage work closely with pet owners to make sure animals are microchipped, have all the correct paperwork, are in correctly sized and certified carriers and have any necessary vaccinations required to fly.
The process can be daunting, and commercial airlines do not always have the bandwidth to support customers hands-on.
"At the moment," Howard says, "we are providing the support to fill the gaps the airline can't fulfill."
Radlynska says that while she is glad her business has been able to stay afloat during the challenging time for the travel industry, it isn't worth benefiting from others' misfortunes.
"In terms of business, it has been a huge positive. But at the same time it is devastating to see people that are basically evacuating Hong Kong with their pets. And they want to leave yesterday."
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.