Be aware of the dangers of flying your pet in a cargo hold While most animals flown in the cargo area of airplanes are fine, you should be aware that some animals are killed, injured or lost on commercial flights each year. Excessively hot or cold temperatures, poor ventilation and rough handling are often to blame.
Cargo travel is stressful for any pet, young or old. Senior pets, pets prone to anxiety, or those in general poor health are at increased risk of heart failure during travel. Please consult your vet before travel to ensure your dog or cat has a clean bill of health and is an appropriate candidate for cargo travel.
Kirsten Theisen, director of pet care issues for the Humane Society of the United States, believes air travel is simply too stressful for most animals, especially when they are placed in an aircraft's cargo hold. “Flying is frightening for animals,” says Theisen.
“I certainly don't recommend it to my clients and I wouldn't ever put my dog underneath in cargo,” she said. If you must bring your dog and he can only travel in cargo, the ASPCA recommends that you book a direct flight, get a checkup with the vet and let them know of your plans to travel.
Having your pet travel via cargo instead of checked baggage would be best. When pets fly via cargo, they are not attached to your ticket, which means they can fly separately from you and be more easily tracked and monitored.
Generally speaking most airlines expect dogs to travel in the cargo hold of the plane. Note that this does not mean that your pet will spend the flight resting against someone's luggage. Instead, animals are confined to a special area of the plane, which is pressurized and heated, for maximum comfort.
You can't buy an extra seat for your dog unless you're flying JSX or JetBlue Airways. Generally speaking, traveling with a dog as a "carry-on luggage" item usually incurs a lower fee than if it travels in the belly of the plane as cargo. And by the way, a pet in its carrier counts as your carry-on bag.
During the trip, your pet will not have access to food because it could be a choking hazard. You can, however, provide a small packet of dog food with your pet to be fed during layovers.
Travelling in Australia with your dog or cat is simple; if you are flying with your pet, you can check your pet in as excess baggage. Customers in Australia will need to enlist a pet relocation agent for domestic travel only if they are not travelling on the same flight as their pet dog or cat.
Your pet will be in his crate for the entirety of the flight in a temperature-controlled portion of the cargo hold. While some pets simply sleep or rest until the plane lands, others panic or suffer from motion sickness.
During the months of May through September, your airline may not allow you to transport your pet in the cargo department. The reason for this restriction is that the heat on the tarmac can heat up the cargo hold quickly.
Most dogs will likely experience some stress flying. It will be a new high-stimulation environment and if your dog is not used to busy areas or being alone for long periods of time, they will feel more stressed.
Although flying in cargo isn't as scary as it sounds, we do not recommend it for anxious dogs.
Dogs suffer from doggie jet lag too. Dogs have a good sense of time and while they don't know the difference between hours and minutes, they do know when it's time to eat, when it's time to sleep and when it's time to play. All of these routines can be thrown off by jet lag – especially when flying east.
We always recommend feeding pets more than 4 hours prior to being picked up from their home or arriving at the airport. This gives your dog enough time to digest their food and, hopefully, pee and poop before going into their travel kennel.
Since a full stomach might be uncomfortable for your dog during travel, we recommend feeding him about four hours before the flight, if possible. While it's best to refrain from feeding your dog right before the flight, you can (and should) continue to give him water right up to the time of travel.
You can travel with a pet on most flights up to 12 hours or flights to / from select locations: Within the 48 contiguous United States. The U.S. and Canada* Alaska.
Most airlines will allow dogs that weigh below 20 pounds in the plane's cabin as long as the dog is secured in a carrier at all times during the flight and is not a disturbance to fellow passengers. If a dog is larger than 20 pounds, the airline may require your dog to fly in the plane's cargo hold.
So long as your dog is crated, many airlines, such as Alaskan or American Airlines, allow large dogs to be checked baggage. As the pet owner, you will bring your dog to check-in as you would normally with your other bags, and then they will be weighed and moved like the rest of your bags.
Unfortunately, larger dogs (with exceptions for trained service animals) have to travel in the cargo hold, along with all the luggage and freight. Most airlines describe this as “shipping” your pet. (Yikes.)
Many things including bottles containing liquids break when the temperature drops below zero, so the cargo hold is always maintained above freezing; 7°C is typical (source). This applies to both pure cargo aircraft and mixed passenger/cargo airplanes.
Your luggage goes through a larger X-ray system.
In addition to passenger baggage, most planes carry enormous amounts of cargo. All of this cargo has to be checked before it is loaded.
An average commercial jet accelerates to between 120 and 140 knots prior to liftoff. To do this in 30 to 35 seconds requires a good sustained acceleration.