EWRtoORD

Hi all,

After nearly a two year covid-related delay, I'm relocating from Chicago to Milan for work, and my pets are joining. After exhausting every possible alternative (my dogs are a breed not permitted to sail on the Queen Mary 2, my employer won't pay for a shared pet-friendly charter, I would never leave them with other people to live out the rest of their lives in confusion about having been abandoned, etc.), my two larger senior dogs will be flying in the cargo hold as excess baggage and my cat will be in the business cabin with me on Lufthansa later this month.

Would greatly appreciate hearing from anyone who has transited through any of ORD, FRA or LIN with checked baggage and/or in-cabin pets on tips or best practices generally, as well as any advice on the following specific questions:

1. Will I need to retrieve the dogs in FRA and re-check them, or will they stay with Lufthansa the whole way through? All flights Lufthansa-operated; no codeshares. LH customer service hasn't been able to confirm.
2. Where do I retrieve them at Linate and how long will it take them to appear?
3. Are the pet relief facilities at ORD and LIN easily accessible for the pets? They are very well potty trained and crate trained, but this would be a long time for any living being to hold it.
4. They will be flying in the giant size vari-kennel, which I understand Lufthansa will accept, but which has presented difficulty arranging transport to and from the airport. Would appreciate any leads on pet-friend airport transportation, preferably in a sprinter van or similar.

Thanks very much, all. This is the most sensitive and important part of my move - it's none of our first choice to have to do this, and I want to do as right as possible by my pets.

bhomburg

1.) They will be checked through to your final destination; you won't have to retrieve them in FRA. Depending on how long your layover is, you *can* do that, though. Personal rule that I follow is that they should not be in their kennels for more than 12 hours at a time. FRA is surrounded by forests that are easy to access for a nice walk. If you fly LH 431 followed by LH 272, the layover is less than two hours, total trip time is 11 hours. In this case just leave them in LH's care. They'll get carted off to the animal hotel and looked after.
2.) They'll appear at the oversize baggage belt closest to where the regular bags come out at about the same time as your regular bags. I`ve had one very bad experience with Italian work ethic regarding this, but that's been with Alitalia and in Malpensa.
3.) ORD, yes, LH uses Terminal1 at ORD, the pet relief area is at the very beginning of the terminal outside the arrivals level. Tip: When driving to the airport at the start of your trip, take 190 and follow the signage to "All Airlines small package delivery". This will have you turn off the main artery and into W. O'Hare Ave right at the airport entrance. The pet relief area is right at the end where this road merges again with the main roadway on the arrivals level at T1. If you are really lucky you can park there for as long as it takes you to check in the dogs, there's a few parking spaces right in front of the pet relief area. LH Check-in is right next to there.
LIN does not have pet relief areas. There's grassy areas around the rental car parking structure that you can use for this purpose, though.
Good luck in finding a baggage cart large enough to fit giant crates. I`d let the doggies out of their crates as soon as they come off the belt, then disassemble the crates again right away so they'd fit on a standard cart and just walk them through customs/immigration/animal inspection. If you are on your own, that's pretty much your only option of handling this.

I`d just rent a minivan for the trip to the airport. Especially with the Chrysler products (Pacifica) and their stow 'n go seats which fold flat into the floor there's ample space for two giant crates. Also, LH wants you to arrive at the airport at least two hours prior to departure, which will leave ample time to assemble the crates when you check them in. Disassembled, with the four pieces stacked inside each other, they take up not that much space and you'll be fine with the cargo space most midsize SUVs offer. BTDT, the smallest rental vehicle I ever stowed dogs, giant crates and my bags in was a first-gen VW Tiguan. It worked.

LondonElite

Semi-duplicate thread from Connecting in FRA.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luft...t-fra-158.html

EWRtoORD

Apologies for semi-duplicate posting LondonElite. My intent was to keep things that might be helpful to future pet travelers through FRA in the FRA thread and things that felt specific to my own trip here, but happy to take direction on one home vs. another for these questions.

bhomburg thanks very much for this hugely helpful information. To keep things here instead of clogging the Connecting in Frankfurt thread, I'm totally shocked to hear that they won't need a four hour layover in Frankfurt, but having dug around the LH website it seems that rule only applies to flights coming from the US when flying on United metal and transferring to LH for the European leg, so maybe I misunderstood the LH rep during booking. I'm looking into whether I can change my flights to limit this layover, as that would absolutely be more comfortable for everybody.

LondonElite

Having travelled extensively with our Labrador, I would agree that you want to keep the connection in FRA as short as possible.

bhomburg

Yes - that four-hour-minimum-connection-time rule is specific to UA-LH connection and has been in place ever since United stopped accepting pets as checked baggage in 2012 and made people use PetSafe, which is a cargo program. With pets flying on United with PetSafe, you'd need to retrieve the crates from the animal hotel (cargo terminal) and bring them over to the passenger terminal for check-in with LH to fly onwards as checked baggage. This takes a ton of time.
Definitely see that you can change your flights.which should be easy given all the covid-related flight change options lately. If you're stuck in Frankfurt for five hours, short-check the dogs to FRA and get out of the airport into Germany (check the replies in the FRA connections thread)

EWRtoORD

bhomburg it seems like you've traveled pretty extensively with pets in Italy. Do you have a preference for either of MXP or LIN for arrival with pets? If LH will let me rebook (which they should, if I can ever get through to an agent) I may also have the opportunity to swap the arrival airport if MXP would be better for them.

bhomburg

I`d say that depends on where your final destination is located - if in Milan city center, then LIN. MXP is 50kms outside of the city, LIN is a city airport.
The last thing you want with baggage and animals after a transatlantic flight is a long ride to get home. A taxi to the city from MXP is about 100 Euros, and traffic can be bad and unpredictable
LIN is a much smaller airport, you'll have to walk a lot less from baggage claim to rental car counters etc. Getting away from the airport should be quicker.
It's a bit like comparing Midway to O'Hare.