Fly With Your Pet in the Cabin from the UK
There is a lot of confusion around transporting pets out of and into the UK, especially by plane. There are many sources of information on this topic, mostly contradictory. This article is meant to clarify the things on flying with your pet out of the UK in the cabin.
Steps
- Make sure you know pet import rules of the destination country.
- Bring your pet to meet the people who will be in charge of caring for him,. This may take anything from 10 days to 6 months.
- Select your airline. Many airlines do allow flying with pets in the cabin, however, often this excludes the UK due to its complex rules and general confusion.
- Be prepared to pay. It will not be free. The price may vary from US$255 to much more. United Airlines claims to take pets out of the UK in the cabin but you should check when booking. Note that they will not take your cat back to the UK.
- Check the pet transport information on your airline's website in detail. Do not assume that the airline will take your pet from the UK; they might have forgotten to state the UK exclusion on their page.
- Check for the ability to take your pet on the connection you want. It might be available only on certain flights with certain aircraft types, in economy class only etc.
- Call the airline to confirm you can take a cat before making the reservation. Note: each member of staff might tell you different story. And non-UK airline staff have a vague idea on the UK pet matters. Ask them very specific questions and ask them to confirm them with their supervisor.
- Make a reservation stating clearly that you are going to take a pet. It might even help to turn up a week in advance as a trial run to see what will happen when you are holding a pet in a cage, asking direct questions.
