Flat-faced ca­nines can no longer fly Cathay Pa­cif­ic. And their fe­line friends need to make oth­er trav­el plans, too. As of Mon­day, the air­line has banned the so-called brachy­cephal­ic breeds due to con­cerns that cer­tain types of short-nosed an­i­mals have an in­creased risk of breath­ing prob­lems and over­heat­ing due to the stress of fly­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the air­line's trav­el ad­vi­so­ry, the ban comes out of con­cern for the "neg­a­tive health im­pact to the an­i­mal" caused by air trans­porta­tion.

Banned are pop­u­lar breeds such as pugs, bull­dogs, and box­ers, as well Hi­malayan, Per­sian and ex­ot­ic short-hair cats. Cathay Pa­cif­ic is the lat­est air­line to ban snub-nosed dogs, fol­low­ing sim­i­lar moves by Sin­ga­pore Air­lines and sev­er­al Amer­i­can car­ri­ers. The move comes a year af­ter the US De­part­ment of Trans­port (DOT) re­leased fig­ures de­tail­ing the num­ber of in-flight ca­nine deaths be­tween May 2005 and May 2010. Their re­sults, com­piled from month­ly re­ports by US air­lines, showed that short-faced dog breeds such as pugs and bull­dogs rep­re­sent­ed about half of in-flight dog deaths.