My friends joke that my cat has more frequent flyer miles than they do—and they might be right. Jetson, my three-year-old tabby, does not meow or wail when we sit at airports or on airplanes. He doesn't claw to get out of his carrier or resist being put back in when I have to take him out. Seatmates on flights often comment that they didn’t even realize they were sitting next to a cat, only noticing the carrier when the flight arrives and everyone gathers their belongings to leave. Jetson is a good traveler, for a cat, but it wasn’t always this way.

I fell for him over Facebook when I saw a photo of two curious eyes surrounded by a fluff of black and gray stripes, posted by a friend, who had rescued this orphaned kitten and nursed him to health. I could provide him with the loving, forever home he needed to grow into a smart and healthy cat, but a distance of over 500 miles separated me from my new fuzzy friend in Michigan. In order for Jetson to become a city kitty in New York with me, he’d have to be comfortable taking airplane flights.

What many of the "how to travel with a cat" online explainers forget to mention is that the most stressful air travel moment is the same for both owner and cat: TSA screening. Even when a cat is safe and cozy in their carrier at the airport, that comfort is liable to be undone as the cat must be lifted out of the safety of their familiar bag and hand-carried through the metal detector during security. Suddenly the cat is surrounded by strange and impatient people, exposed to new noises and smells. The scent of Auntie Anne’s pretzels may be a favorite of yours but, for your cat, it’s only another potential source of fear and confusion.

To orient Jetson to the strange surrounds of airports and airlines, I first familiarized him with other forms of transportation. Regularly taking Jetson on short car, subway, and bus trips to visit friends and run easy errands helped him understand that being in a carrier and presented with new people and sounds doesn’t always mean "trip to the vet." Even when I’m not planning an excursion I leave the carrier out, open and unzipped, and occasionally find Jetson napping inside it. At the same time I socialized him to love me, my family, and my friends, he became comfortable in a variety of environments.

Jetson is microchipped and now wears a reflective neon orange collar to mark him as an indoor cat, in accordance with cartoonist Matthew Inman’s “Kitty Convict” project. Every time we fly, I complete a checklist: collar with ID, Rabies vaccine tag, harness, leash, vaccination record, cozy blanket and toy, portable food/water bowl, and a rolled up litter bag with litter that can be MacGyvered into a single-use litter box. The contingency plan, in case of weather delay or flight cancellation, is to head for the nearest pet-friendly hotel (La Quinta and Doubletree Hotels are pet-friendly and very few major airports are without one of these in the vicinity) and keep to a normal home schedule that always includes some playtime for Jetson to stretch and run around.

The final key to Jetson’s transformation into a jetsetter is eye contact and a soothing refrain. He may have flown thousands of miles with me in peace, but that’s not to say he doesn’t get anxious at times. From his carrier underneath the airplane seat in front of me, Jetson often looks up. I return his stare, soften my expression with a small smile, and calmly reply in the same way I do any other time we’re out and about—with a simple “you’re okay." It helps people a lot, too.