SEATTLE — Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Sabino the Flying Kitty!
He was just a barn kitten on a Texas ranch with an eye infection when he was touched by an angel. "I just have a soft spot for all animals. I saw him with his weepy, closed eye and I thought ohh. So I drove all the way back to town, took him to the emergency vet that day," says his human, Hanne Zak. She was visiting her boyfriend's ranch.
"He was a stray cat. He's just an orange tabby." But not just any orange tabby. Sabino flies all over the globe with Hanne, who's been a pilot for six years. "He went from rags to riches...from being an outdoor, barn cat to now he travels all over. I took him to Europe twice last year with me."
Like to Paris. "We went and bought a baguette. Then we got the picnic basket. And I bought him a little outfit, y'know, Parisien. And we went to the Eiffel Tower and had a whole photo session."
When she took him in, he needed eye drops five times a day. So Hanne took him back home to Washington to care for him. He did so well on the Alaska Airlines flight, she kept bringing him along. At first she was afraid he might bolt away from her in the airport, but not anymore. "He really just sticks close by me. He's happy to just be held and sit in my arms and look around and see what's going on. And he's not too bothered by all the people. He's more timid. He's not like at home. But he's a really relaxed cat."
He gladly rides in a shopping cart, atop a rolling suitcase, and on the airport tram. But his favorite mode of transportation is high in the sky, where he can roam around the cabin as Hanne flies the plane. He often peeks out the window while on her lap. Or he can retreat to his Louis Vuitton travel capsule. "He prefers to be more in the back and just hang out."
He is most comfortable in his official travel uniform he got at an airshow. "They had this little co-pilot, flight jacket. And I was like oh my gosh. That's happening. Buying it."
And though his lack of opposable thumbs hinders his ability to grasp the controls, he is Hanne's co-pilot on their frequent trips to visit her boyfriend in Texas. Sabino has his own reason for the trip. "He has a girlfriend who lives down there. She moved. She used to live up here. They remember each other. It's pretty cute."
See more of Sabino and Hanne's travels on his Instagram page.
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