Photo taken on Jan. 31, 2022 shows a red lantern at the Potala Palace square in Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. The Spring Festival falls on Feb. 1 this year. (Xinhua/Chogo)

LHASA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Before Yu Gang, a staffer of a pet transportation company, traveled back to his hometown to reunite with his family for the Spring Festival he had to get all the pets handled by his company on planes.

Yu's company is based on the southern outskirts of Lhasa, the capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

During the Spring Festival holiday, many out-of-towners in Tibet choose to take their pets with them when they head to their hometown, while some local residents planning to spend the holiday outside Tibet also want their pets' company on their trips.

Due to the high altitude and cold weather in Tibet, long trips by bus or train will easily cause pets stress, affecting their health. Therefore, most pets owners on the plateau choose to ship pets by air.

"We got more pets on the arrival of the Spring Festival than usual. Our company received as many as over 20 pets a day," said Yu, adding that the shipping fees range from several hundred yuan to several thousand yuan for different pets.

Yu starts his daily work every morning at around 6:00 am -- checking pets' certificates of vaccine and quarantine, nucleic acid results, examining the pets and their cages, and sending them to the airport.

There are food, water and disposable pet urinal pats in the airline-approved pet cages. The pets need to travel several hours to reunite with their owners.

"Arriving in low altitude places, pets can draw in more oxygen per breath than they would at higher altitudes, therefore, they will become drowsy, just like human beings," said Yu, adding he often reminds pet owners that because of the low temperature during the journey, they should add clothes to their pets and feed them less before departure.

"I have been doing this job for more than three years. We make every effort to ensure that every pet arrives at its destination safely." he said.