Hi all,

A friend of my wife's is moving from Maryland to SoCal and needs to bring her two (full-grown) beagles. They're too big to travel in-cabin so they will need to go as cargo, which is worrying the friend (the dogs are very much part of the family).

Does anyone know what the safety records are for various airlines (e.g. pet deaths in flight, mishandling of pet cargo, etc.), and whether some airlines are better than others for transporting live animals in the hold? Are yearly statistics published someplace? Are there any airlines to favor or those to particularly avoid?

My feeling is that they're all roughly the same, since I haven't heard about catastrophic failures for any particular airline... but I wanted to ask from people who know a lot more than I do! I take my small dogs in-cabin each year but have never shipped one as cargo, so I have no experience with this particular aspect.

(I know there are seasonal restrictions and that there are differences in policies between the airlines, e.g. weight restrictions, carrier restrictions based on animal size, etc... that's all fine. My wife's friend is most interested in safety records so as to know whether to avoid or favor any airlines.)

Thanks in advance for any helpful info.

They allow dogs in the cabin? :eek:

You can minimize risk but you can't remove them all.

First advice is don't fly in the summer, or when there's warm weather. Heat's the no. 1 killer of dogs/pets (so much so that some airlines place blanket embargos for the summer). Next, get a non-stop flight to avoid handling risks at transit points. May sure the cage doors are secure in case the door comes lose and the pets escape (could be fatal with a/c around).

BTW, if there's a fire (or suspected fire) in the hold, the chemicals in the extinguishers would mean the dogs are toast.

The Department of Transportation tracks incidents with animals. You can find the reports here. http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/ You can also read the reports on individual incidents.

I'm not sure you can get a meaningful "Airline A is safer than B" from the few incidents that are reported.

You may also want to google "Airline Pet Safety" as several good references come up. Something I just noticed on one of them is that the use of tranquilizers is the biggest cause of death for pets in flight (did not read very carefully though).

They allow dogs in the cabin? :eek:

Yes - if they are in an approved carrier that fits under the seat, and there is a limit on the number per aircraft cabin. Seeing eye dogs and other service/law-enforcement/search & rescue dogs are also allowed without the need of a carrier.

You can try this website - http://www.petflight.com/. It has pretty good information on flying with your pet.