Pet travel
 

Hi

I am getting such conflicting advice its driving me potty. I want to transport my cat from Gatwick. Would like to fly Air transat because it's half the price of Air Canada for the family. I thought you know if i can sort PR surely i can do the pet travel myself. Searched previous threads to see people seem to have done it alone and booked with Air Transat. When i emailed AT they said they do not deal directly with passengers that i have to use a pet agent. Getting frustrated ..... can anyone help.
Can't believe we are actually going to be on our way taken 18 months to sell our house but looks like its happening at long long last.

Thanks

:starsmile::starsmile::starsmile::starsmile::stars mile::starsmile:

Re: Pet travel
 

we contacted air transat in Canada direct, our cat and dog are booked on the same flight as us, from Gatwick, as excess baggage. All the details are on the air transat websight. You will need the correct air kennel for puss, we bought vari kennels for ours online.
I hope that this is some help to you :fingerscrossed:
Glynis

Re: Pet travel
 

Thank you, reckon thats where i've gone wrong. I'll contact them directly.
Am i right in thinking i'll need export certificate, fit to fly certificate, vaccinations & crate?
Thanks again.

:thumbup:

Re: Pet travel
 

Read this link regarding bringing your cat
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals/.../1331904720313

Re: Pet travel
 

We used Animalairlines.co.uk for relocating our Golden Retriever and moggy in January 2010. They were excellent and saw to all the paperwork, advising us what we needed from our vets, etc, and providing the crates after we supplied details of our pets' dimensions! I flew with my pets from Gatwick to Vancouver with Thomas Cook, who don't fly that route any more, but Air Transat does and I guess that's who Animal Airlines will now use. Good luck, it's not as traumatic as you think it will be!

Re: Pet travel
 

I'd get decent pet insurance if I was you as my mate shipped a cat from New York to Portland OR and he died on the way. The airline wouldn't even pay for the vet to take him away so he had got put him the rubbish bin at the airport. He got no compensation from the airline or an apology because you sign something and apparently it happens to a lot to pets as the travel is quite stressful and they only small hearts.

Re: Pet travel
 

Oink, you poor sod... I am so sorry, you and your family must have felt bloody awful. I once 'lost ' a cat on the way from Jordan, the kennel arrived, locked, but somehow the cat had gone - this was 15 years ago, and I never pass through that terminal without thinking about the poor thing. That being said I have travelled successfully with a lot of cats over the years. I really think I get far more stressed than the animals. I am hopefully taking the dog with me, in a Vari-kennel, but the cats (3) I am going to send by a professional, it's about 12 weeks till we go and I can feel my 'excitement/dread/anticipation' building and I can't cope with the cats as well.

Re: Pet travel
 

Sounds like a catastrophe :(

Re: Pet travel
 

Thank you but it wasn't my cat, it was my mates, his name was Norman, the cat that is. Lots of people successfully fly their animals without any problems but sometimes things go wrong and it'd be better to get proper insurance in case it does die.

Re: Pet travel
 

Insurance from who? :confused:

My pet insurance in the UK that I had whilst I lived there wouldn't insure the dog for travel - once she was in the air that was it.

I had to sign a form that said that I wouldn't claim if my dog died from natural causes. Clearly if an animal is really old there is a chance of this happening. I had to take my chances as mine is only still a pup.

Saying that tho it took us an age to get her from the airport - faffing about with clearance, customs etc so by the time she got out the crate I reckon it would have been a good 12 hours in there.

She was absolutely fine - no ill effects and just sauntered out like she didn't have a care in the world.

Re: Pet travel
 

You can get pet insurance from specialised companies such as this one - http://www.petmigration.co.uk
Have not used them yet, was quoted about £50 for our dog to travel to Vancouver, and we will also be looking into insurance for the dog with a Canadian company before getting out to Canada so that side of things is set up for when we get there.

Re: Pet travel
 

Hiya, we've also been looking into shipping animals from Glasgow to Vancouver with moderate success..we found out that Air Transat DO NOT allow Staffordshire Bull Terriers and other particular breeds onto any of their flights. Phoned numerous pet travel companies who told us that this was not true, but then we showed them the link to the Air Transat website and they quickly changed their stories..Our two dogs will have to be shipped on BA or Air Canada out of Gatwick. We were told by the airlines that we MUST go through a middle man company..the best quote we've had is from JetSetPets, though there still is alot of paperwork and vet checks that we need to sort out ourselves..PetAirUK were highly recommended but the person we spoke to was useless and their quote was ridiculously high. Be sure to do your own researching before phoning these companies.

Re: Pet travel
 

Spend a couple of hours ringing a load of companies - have the sizes of the dogs ready. The range of the quotes I got was just stupid - from £1200 - £4000.

I would recommend Skymaster who I used but they are only from Manchester I believe. They did arrange fit to fly for me tho as we dropped our dog off 5 days before we flew and the FTF cert needs to be within 48 hours of them flying. They arranged transport to and from the kennels they used so there are companies out there that do it. :)

Re: Pet travel
 

My dogs have flown several times with airtransat I always book this myself it normally costs around £250. per pet, I always tie my cages with plastic cable ties just incase they try to escape. I just check them in at check in with myself and pick them up at the other end. Please don't forget to declare them on the customs form I missed it last year and nearly got charged a $1000 as a fine.

Re: Pet travel
 

we took our cat as carry on with Air Canada, he was about GBP100 plus the cost of the vari-kennel which we got on ebay for about GBP40. He had all his shots, rabies everything and got a pet passport which we had to then show. Air Canada at Heathrow took him at checkin and provided him with water etc and he was absolutely fine.

You just have to ensure your vet fills in the correct paperwork, your kennel is the correct size and you have all your paperwork. I am sure we just followed the wiki advice at the time.

Oh and check the info on the airline website, Air Canada wont fly pets in the hot summer months or coldest winter months due to the temps in the hold and there is are restrictions on weight and age, cant be very young or very skinny as we read it.