NEWS - But do they get frequent flier miles?

In what sounded like a bad promotional tie-in for vacations to Disney World, or perhaps the movie "Snakes on a Plane," a whistleblower recently claimed that an American Airlines 767 had 900-1000 mice living on board.

I wouldn't dispute that having mice living on an airplane--even the airline's estimate of 17 mice--would be a health and safety issue (though, depending on the number of mice, it might not be a great enough safety issue to take the plane out of service immediately). However, I find it interesting that both the first online story I found on the subject (linked-to above) , and the TV coverage that first alerted me to the story both mentioned the figure of 900-1000 mice. Think about that number. A Boeing 767 is 159-201 feet long, depending upon the model--so in every foot of the aircraft, four to six mice supposedly not only found pressurized areas to hide, but enough food to eat for a couple of weeks. I have great doubts as to whether that's possible--let alone likely, yet the media is reporting that claim relatively uncritically.

In the meantime, I have to tell my cats that they've missed their chance to fly someplace with good in-flight meals.