Live Animal Air Transport For Dummies (And Rescues)

Air transport of live animals is a recurring subject for rescues. As it seems I keep rewriting some version of this post, usually to would-be adopters considering how to get a potential dog from where she is to them, I'm finally breaking down and publishing it here.

Flying can work, but it depends on a bunch of factors.

• Ambient ground air temperatures at departure, destination, and any mid-point airports must be between 45°F and 85°F at the time of departure/arrival.
  
• The airport must be serviced by an airline flying live animals as cargo. Currently, this is limited to American Airlines, Alaska Air, and Hawaiian Air. Others fly with some exceptions:
  
• United discontinued live animal cargo transport to the general public in 2018 following a high-profile failure of their PetSafe service. They will fly animals for relocating US military families and State Department employees.
• Delta stopped flying animals (mostly) during the pandemic. As with United, Delta will fly for relocating US military families and State Department employees.
• Southwest will fly "small, vaccinated domestic cats and dogs in an appropriate pet carrier in the cabin on domestic flights." Other airlines have similar policies, e.g. Allegiant and Frontier, and the carriers mentioned above.
• In case you were thinking about shipping an animal:
  
• Per their 2024 Service Guide, "FedEx does not accept animal carcass or live-animal shipments as part of its regular-scheduled service and does not transport household pets such as dogs, cats, birds, and hamsters."
• UPS will not ship any mammals.
• American is the most complicated to fly, but offers the widest choices of origin and destination airports as well as generally shorter layovers. From their How to Transport Your Pet page:
• The dog must not be one of the restricted breeds (pit bulls or any of their synonyms, cane corsos, etc.). This does not apply to ESes!
• Confirm the animal's service class eligibility. All but the largest dogs will fly Priority Parcel Service (can fit in a 36"x26"Wx28"H or 400 kennel, and weighs less than 100 lbs.); all others fly ExpediteFS.
  
• Confirm the route is available and has properly equipped aircraft.  Often their smaller destination airports are not equipped for this. This is made harder by virtue of the fact that the route page does not use the same nomenclature as the aircraft limitation page.
• Check ambient ground temperatures at all airports are forecast to be between 45°F and 85°F at the time the animal will be on the ground.
• Confirm kennel size and aircraft compatibility.
  
• For Alaska and Hawaiian, the temperature restrictions are also in play.
  
• The dog must have a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection, which can be performed by most vets*. This must be done ten days or less before the dog arrives at the destination airport.

*Yes, I have actually had a dog go to a vet who was not licensed to grant US FDA APHIS CVIs, and this almost blew up a commercial transport I was trying to assemble at the last minute!