Exclusive | Hero NYC pilot dedicates his life to rescuing thousands of unwanted animals: We want to save them all

New York native Michael Schneider’s passion for rescuing animals came at a young age — when he was just 6 years old.And he’s been flying high about it ever since.“That’s all I ever knew growing up,” he told The Post, remembering how his family would go to the local SPCA, a no-kill shelter, in Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County and bring home dogs and cats.“Beyond that, I used to take in animals from the neighborhood.I was the little boy that took in the injured bird with a broken wing and nursed it back to health,” he reminisced.

“I even had a pet sitting business when I was 11 years old.”Later, after discovering a passion for flying following a skydiving trip, he chose to become a commercial pilot — and then combined his two loves.In 2015, he founded the airborne angels group Pilots to the Rescue, a transportation nonprofit that saves at-risk animals in need of relocation and shuttles them from overcrowded and under-resourced shelters to partner rescues where they can be in a safer environment.To date, Schneider and his team have flown a whirlwind 353,600-plus miles on 313 missions that saved 4,488 animals from North Carolina to Florida to Texas.“I wanted to do something of substance with this pilot’s license that I worked so hard to achieve,” the 48-year-old Brooklyn resident said.

“I heard about people transporting animals at risk of being euthanized using airplanes, so when I learned about that, of course, I jumped on that opportunity.”In less than 48 hours after coming up with the idea, Schneider raised $12,000 from friends and family to support his two passions, “letting them know that our furry friends don’t have a voice.”“They would say, ‘Well, why an aircraft?’ And I would tell them that the faster we can get them out, the faster we can save them — which, literally, sometimes these animals have less than 24 hours to get out,” he added.The transports are more of a hybrid situation.Schneider said of the �...