New York Airport Creates Pet Terminal

A few weeks ago it was announced that New York’s JFK airport will host a new luxury terminal for animals, designed to manage the more than 70,000 specimens that pass through there every year.

Cows and horses will find air-conditioned stalls at their disposal, while dogs can take a nap quietly in luxurious suites equipped with television. Even penguins will find a space of their own, which will allow them to mate with maximum privacy.

In this article we want to accompany you to discover the  new JFK airport terminal.

Pet terminal at JFK Airport

The new terminal will be called Arca (in English ARK), with a clear reference to the biblical Noah’s Ark, and will be the first air terminal in the world completely dedicated to animals.

With an investment of approximately 48 million dollars and an area of ​​16,500 square meters, this space will be dedicated to both pets and other animals. It will be a welcome and quarantine center and will welcome all kinds of animals, starting with dogs and cats up to sloths or giant anteaters.

Many of the animals that arrive in the United States are quarantined for a certain period (for horses, for example, it is typically three days), to make sure they are not carriers of infectious diseases.

In this respect, Arca has been designed to make the stay of these animals as comfortable as possible, with stables equipped with hay and forage capable of accommodating 70 horses and 180 head of cattle, as well as an aviary and several pens for goats, pigs and sheep.

For dogs, Arca offers a luxury complex of 1860 square meters, with bone-shaped pools and a great variety of services, from massages to pawdicure (a mix of paw, which means paw in English, and manicure), passing for a touch of color on the nails.

Dogs will also have access to flat screens to watch television and a webcam system will allow their owners to keep them under control and monitor their movements at all times.

Cats, on the other hand, will have trees all for them to be able to climb. A veterinary assistance service will be available for all animals in the terminal at a 24-hour clinic run by Cornell University.

Even animals that do not need to be quarantined (e.g. giant dogs that cannot enter the cabin and should therefore travel in the hold) will be able to spend a period of time in this terminal, until their owners return for them .

Some more data on this project

The Arca terminal will be built on the site of an old cargo terminal which has been demolished. The project is borne by Madison Avenue Racebrook, who signed a 32-year lease.

Once the project is finished, its approval will depend on the United States Department of Agriculture. Pets staying in this space will have to pay an airport tax according to the services provided by the terminal.

Dog suites, for example, could exceed $100 per night.

Transporting animals by air is not suitable for all budgets : a flight to London, for example, can cost around $1,000, not including airport taxes, pet carriers and veterinary certificates.

Transporting a horse can cost more than $10,000.

For the designers of the project it was a real challenge, since it is a pioneering and absolutely innovative idea. One of the biggest challenges, for example, is to devise a system to eliminate animal residues.

Ark will be the paradise dreamed of by all those animals who experience moments of great stress at the airport. Horses are an example of this: currently they need to be taken to a quarantine center in Newburg, which is about 130 km from JFK Airport.

In the future, with the new terminal , horses will finally be able to go through quarantine at the airport, without the stress of traveling this long.

This possibility guarantees the tranquility of the owners, because it avoids an unnecessary journey that would stress the animal, and consequently also limits the risks that the jockey runs when he has to ride an agitated horse.