It is only when we reach 41,000ft in a private jet, as I’m watching a boxer called Jasmine Jessica Parker recline on a leather sofa while she gets her paws rubbed with hot, scented towels by a concierge, that I think: Oh right! This is completely mad.

Immediately I am snapped out of what can only be described as a fugue state. The previous hours are all coming back. Shards of memory. Flashbacks. There’s me, clapping and laughing as seven dogs walked across a “grass carpet” and up the steps into a Gulfstream jet; me, cooing as they sipped their “doggy champagne” (chicken bone broth) from silver bowls; and me, trying to get a photo of the dogs joining the pilot in the cockpit, gormlessly smiling at my iPhone screen and zooming in on their faces.

Welcome aboard Bark Air, where the skies are clear and the vibes are bonkers. I am taking one of the airline’s first transatlantic flights between Westchester county airport, New York, to Biggin Hill, south London, which began in April. The actor Glenn Close and her dog, a Havanese called Sir Pippin of Beanfield, were recent passengers.

A press event last month for Bark, which has added destinations to its roster

A press event last month for Bark, which has added destinations to its roster

EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

With tickets starting at $8,000/£6,300 (one dog, one human, one way), Bark sells itself as a “white glove” experience and was founded by the New York entrepreneur Matt Meeker, who wanted to find a way to transport his Great Dane after finding out, first hand, the horrors of being put in the hold. (He crawled into a dog crate on a flight between Florida and Long Island.)

Right now there is no way to fly into the UK with your dog on commercial flights, meaning that until Bark they had to be boxed up and shoved into the hold as cargo. Bark also flies between Los Angeles and New York city, and last week, responding to demand, it announced destinations including Paris, San Francisco and Miami.

Each jet has the capacity for nine dogs, though today there are seven, sitting in their leather recliners with little idea that they have won the litter-lottery, whisked off into a world of seven-star service by “their humans”, also known as the losers who pick up the bill. The humans have seatbelts; the dogs do not.

The “green carpet” is rolled out for arrivals at Westchester county airport, upstate New York

The “green carpet” is rolled out for arrivals at Westchester county airport, upstate New York

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

“Before they arrive, the owners will give us the deep dives of the dog’s needs,” says Katharine Enos, Bark Air’s chief of staff and one of the concierges on today’s flight. It is 7am in the New York private jet terminal and we are waiting for the first pets to arrive.

Enos is holding a printout showing a photo of each dog next to bullet-point lists of personality traits (reactive or social? Shy or aggressive?), diets (poodles often have allergies to chicken; others only eat organic); and travel history (small dogs often exhibit anxious shaking).

From there, the Bark team creates a seating plan — alternating in size and personality, and obviously next to their “parents”. Enos says: “We are very in touch with picking up dog cues and seeing as dogs maybe are finding something a bit too much.”

Next the dogs socialise in the terminal over breakfast before they board, to sniff bums and so on. First to arrive are Wilbur and Orville, eight-month-old King Charles Cavalier brothers from Nashville. Nearly identical, they can be distinguished by the former’s middle parted hair-do and the latter’s more slicked look.

Joe Johnson carries Wilbur the King Charles Cavalier on behalf of the dogs’ owners while Sharyn Amiel, right and below, takes care of Orville

Joe Johnson carries Wilbur the King Charles Cavalier on behalf of the dogs’ owners while Sharyn Amiel, right and below, takes care of Orville

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

Their owners are relocating to London until August, taking their luggage and their children via commercial. As a result, Joe Johnson, 32, their personal assistant, and Sharyn Amiel, 51, their old friend, are bringing the puppies. First in a private jet from Nashville to Westchester, then the Bark Air flight. “They’re the babies,” says Amiel, the dog curled up on her lap.

Storming through the sliding doors is a wide-set boxer, whose entrance “triggers” Orville, now barking and wiggling all over the floor. “Hey, hey, hey,” says Johnson, looking into Orville’s eyes, “you’re okay.”

The boxer, Jasmine Jessica Parker, or Jazzy, is owned by Jason, 41, who wears aviator shades, his dog’s leash tied to his jeans, and has a sleeve of tattoos down one arm. Jason spent 17 years working at a hedge fund in New York before becoming a “digital nomad”, trading stocks from his phone (“I’m a big precious-metal guy”), jetting between pads in Barcelona, Puerto Rico and now London, seeing where the wifi takes him.

“She’s super alpha,” he says, looking down at his Jazzy. “She has a really dominant personality, she’s not scared of anything. She weighs 60lbs and she’s hard to train.” The two Cavaliers quiver.

Jazzy the boxer makes her way to the cabin

Jazzy the boxer makes her way to the cabin

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

Next through the door is a ten-year-old family dog named Holly, an Australian koolie wearing a Union Jack collar, and her (human) sister Natalie, an impossibly glamorous Chicagoan with gold bangles on her wrist and a Louis Vuitton handbag. “My mom actually just drove Holly from Texas to New York,” Natalie, 33, says. How long did that take? “Two days.”

She is here to transport Holly to London, where their father has just got a job as the chief executive of a crypto company. Natalie is planning to spend a couple of months traversing Europe with friends — first London, then the south of France, then onwards. “I’m actually writing a book right now,” she tells me gently. “It’s about the victim mentality. It’s a philosophy book.”

Natalie and Holly the koolie

Natalie and Holly the koolie

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

We begin boarding, walking across the tarmac. Eddie, four, a border collie/Bernese cross, leaps up the steps and into the jet, sitting on top of his owner as soon as he’s on board, legs splayed like a baby, gazing out the window.

The Bark team have sprayed a pheromone formula around the cabin, supposed to calm the dogs down. Others have been handed calming aids (the dietary supplement L-theanine) or are wearing hoodies and weighted blankets, which have a swaddling effect.

Isiah, a three-and-a-half-year-old rescue dog, is drugged up and blissed out, having been prescribed trazadone, an anti-anxiety medication. His owner, Noah Abrams, 26, is bringing his dog from his parents’ home in New York to London, where he is chief of staff for Crystal Palace FC, having spent the previous five years playing professional football for clubs mostly in the US.

“I think he’s been able to sense that I have always been moving from place to place and that’s made him more anxious,” says Abrams. “So hopefully he knows we’ll be in London for a couple of years at least and can just relax into it.” He pauses. “But maybe I’m just projecting.” There is reggae music playing on a speaker, apparently proven to help calm dogs down.

Noah Abrams hopes Isiah will feel settled on board and in London

Noah Abrams hopes Isiah will feel settled on board and in London

STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

For the people, lunch is mushroom ragu, grilled chicken risotto or fillet mignon. For the dogs, it’s roast duck treats and “puppuchinos” (whipped cream with beef liver sprinkles). Afterwards they have their spa treatments: paw and nose balm, warm mitten massage and a robe. Incredibly, on the handful of Bark Air flights so far, not a single dog has been to the loo on the plane. (They do have pads, in case.)

The flight attendant whispers to me that Poppy-Jane, a 22-month-old Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen (known among fans as a PBGV), might be the first. She has found the ascent a little more nerve wracking, her back end collapsing slightly with uncertainty when she tries to stand up, her paws barely leaving the floor. “It’s a lot of stimulation,” says her owner, Bill Louv, 72, a retired pharmaceuticals executive.

“Thank God she can be up here with us,” says his wife, Jill, 71. Based in North Carolina, the Louvs are coming to the UK for a month-long walking holiday, and might go to a PBGV meet-up while they’re here. “We’re committed to the breed,” says Bill. This is their sixth. “We were going to just put her under the plane in the hold,” says Jill.

After six hours, we are coming into land in London. “We’re here!” I tell the boys, Wilbur and Orville. The dogs have their paperwork approved (rabies vaccine, health certificate), after which they are released, bounding down the steps, across the runway, via a patch of grass for pee-pee-poo-poo and straight into their waiting Mercedes-Benz. “Bye!” I say with a wave, trying to peer through the blacked-out windows. It’s often said that dogs are man’s most loyal servants; but on Bark Air at least, the opposite is true.

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