A new air service is testing the idea that man’s best friend should fly with at least the same level of class and convenience as their human owners.
RetrievAir knows flying with dogs can be ruff…er, rough, so it is trying to make it more convenient by giving pups their own special seat on the plane. Its inaugural flight took place on Feb. 7 from Arlington Municipal Airport to Denver, and the company just recently got approval from the Department of Transportation to begin selling tickets.
Planned routes will be revealed in the coming weeks, with RetrievAir expecting to get pets (and their parents) in the air by Memorial Day Weekend in May.
“We’ll have flights scheduled so that people can travel with their pets for the holiday and then throughout the summertime too, we’ll have regularly scheduled flights from some of the most pet-obsessed and largest travel destinations in the U.S.,” said founder and CEO Benton Miller.
The average price for a one-way ticket on RetrievAir is $750, the company says, be it a human or furry friend occupying the seat.
While there is a price premium relative to major airlines, most carriers have stopped allowing pets to fly in the undercarriage, limiting flying to pets small enough to fit under the seat in a kennel. And carriers that do allow pets in the cargo area have strict size and breed restrictions.
The backstory
Miller, who went to Keller High School then Baylor University, is married to a Mesquite native. When life took the couple farther and farther away from family, it left them wondering how to travel home with their two Labrador retrievers, Mabel and Willow.
Now living in Minneapolis, Miller came up with the RetrievAir concept while getting his master’s in business administration from Indiana University. The program required students to develop and pitch a real business idea.
Miller attracted investor interest, and officially founded the company in 2024.
“It’s really organically grown out of the pain points from pet parents,” Miller said. “We’re building this from pet parents for pet parents.”
Technically, RetrievAir is not an airline but it is a public charter operator, which Miller says helps it address the frictions of traveling with pets.
The flights leave from airport terminals specifically designed for private, charter, and business aviation, which lets pet parents avoid crowded terminals and long security lines.
RetrievAir places passengers on 30-seat regional jets owned and operated by its partner, RVR Aviation. Each row seats one pet family, meaning canine passengers don’t have to share space with unfamiliar dogs.
It helps to avoid the kind of unwanted interactions canine owners may encounter at dog parks.
“We had zero barks on two flights. We had zero confrontations. We had all sleeping, all loving, eating treats, hanging out,” Miller said.
Keeping barks, dogfights to a minimum
Move over on-time percentage, a key metric for human air travel ― in-flight barks are the new aviation metric to track. It’s part of RetrievAir’s commitment to a safe, comfortable flight experience.
Miller said flights will have trained flight attendants (and not just to sit and roll over), as well as procedures in place for dealing with canine confrontations.
“An unruly dog is no different, in a lot of ways, to an unruly passenger,” said Mark Williams, a 30-year aviation industry veteran, and RetrievAir’s co-founder and senior advisor.
“Airlines all have sort of procedures in place around unruly passengers, and to be honest, I’d much rather deal with an unruly dog than an unruly human,” he adds.
Miller also noted that there’s self-selection too, in that responsible pet parents with well-trained dogs are more likely to go the extra mile to travel with their pets.
Two Great Danes, Lucas and Cowboy, flew on RetrievAir’s inaugural flight. Had they needed to stay home, Miller pointed out that owners would have had to pay for a pet sitter, or dog boarding. Both options are pricey, and can involve the additional hassles of finding a sitter or reserving a kennel spot.
RetrievAir is currently using one plane that flies four days a week. It hopes to see what the demand is, then potentially expand to more days and more planes, Williams said.
He also said RetrievAir plans to work with pet adoption agencies to fill empty seats with dogs on the way to forever homes.
RetrievAir’s biggest value proposition, though, is simply the joy of pet owners taking their best buds on adventures ― conveniently and at an attainable price.
“Our whole goal is to take that companionship that’s been, secluded in the backyard and expand that across the U.S,” Miller said.
“Dogs can see the beach for the first time, dogs can see the mountains for the first time. You can create those memories, and they don’t have to be left behind.”
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