lapeter

I hope the mods don't move this to the "traveling with pets" section as this is only on United.

As of March 3, 2012, United has adopted the CO pet policies. Supposed to be better but maybe not. We fly our two dogs from Maui to Boise twice a year. It has been easy in the past but now it is different. We are going back to Boise in June. I called the new "pet line" (was on hold for 45 minutes) to find out what to do now that pets down below are "cargo". The friendly agent told me that now we take our dogs to united cargo three hours before the flight and do the paperwork and that cargo will take the dogs to the plane. Sounds simple, not!!! Not trusting United, we decided to go to the airport this month just to confirm and find out where United cargo is located. In our case, going from Maui to Boise is ALWAYS a red eye unless we want to spend the night at SFO. Hard to do with two dogs. Off we go to the airport and finally find United cargo. I asked the person in cargo about the procedure for our pets. I already know that cargo was closed on Sunday because I asked. Nobody ever mentioned this. I mentioned we go out on the 9 to 10PM flight and he tells me, " We close at 4:30 PM and we do not take the pets to the plane. We need to come earlier in the day or the day before with the dogs and kennel to do the paperwork. Then the night of the flight we take the dogs to the counter. The Pet line knew nothing about that at all. If we had not gone early to speak to cargo, we would have show up around 6PM to leave the dogs at cargo and we have found cargo closed. Would have missed that flight. I think this procedure may only be for Maui, but I am not sure.

Fast forward to Sept. and bringing the dogs back to Maui from Boise. We usually take the 6AM flight out of Boise to SFO then Maui. I called Boise Cargo and they open at 5:30AM and at Boise they take the dogs to the plane but we have to arrive 3 hours early. I asked if we could do the paperwork the day before and they said no. No more early flights to Maui with the dogs.

If you are flying with pets "below the cabin", then you should go to the airport ahead of time to see what the procedure is at that airport. The Pet line does not know anything. Once we know what the procedures are at different airports it should be find. Good luck flying with your pets.
Aloha
Al