Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 1, 2005 FAT CAT

Add this story to the "cats always land on their feet" legend!

After hopping a truck from Wisconsin to Chicago, "cruising" the Atlantic for a month, finally arriving in France by way of Belgium - all without benefit of "sustenance" (as Sylvester would say)...Emily has joined the "jet set", flying across the "big pond" courtesy of Continental Airlines...in business class, no less!

From the Associated Press...

From stowaway to fat cat class

PARIS, France (AP) -- Emily the cat is heading home, in style.

The wayward tabby from Wisconsin that disappeared two months ago and wound up traveling across the Atlantic to France on a ship boarded a Continental Airlines flight Thursday -- in business class.

Travel conditions leaving Europe promised to be a bit more comfortable for Emily, who arrived as a stowaway in a cargo container after straying from home in Wisconsin.

"I don't think she'll drink champagne but I think she will be happy to rest," said Continental spokesman Philippe Fleury, at Charles de Gaulle airport to see Emily off. The airline offered to fly the cat home after her tale spread around the world and she cleared a one-month quarantine.

"This was such a marvelous story, that we wanted to add something to it," Fleury told AP Television News. A full-fare ticket for Emily's seat would normally cost about $6,000 and the airline provided a company escort for the cat.

Emily vanished from her home in Appleton, Wisconsin, late September. She apparently wandered into a paper company's distribution center near her home and crawled into a container of paper bales.

The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found October 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France.

Emily, who turned 1 year old that very day, was thin and thirsty but still alive.

Workers at Raflatac used her tags to phone her veterinarian in Wisconsin, and the vet called her owners.

Emily faced one last packed day of travel before her homecoming. She was due to arrive from Paris in Newark, New Jersey, midday Thursday and board a connecting flight to Chicago and then be driven home to Wisconsin, Fleury said.

Emily's escort, George Chiladze, a Continental employee based in Newark, said he was thrilled to be the one taking Emily back across the Atlantic.

"I will make somebody really happy to deliver this poor traveler back home," he said.