When I brought our dog Gatwick to Calgary, mid-October, she nearly couldn't fly because the air-conditioning in the hold where the animals were due to travel was not working.

They eventually found a way to put her in a different hold that was temperature-controlled, but this does suggest that outside temperatures are not so much a factor on trans-Atlantic flights?

I know that internal flights do not carry animals in winter, but these big guys travel so high that the outside temperatures are somewhere in the region of -50 C or something anyway! I can't remember the exact figures as it was a year ago ... maybe somebody who has travelled more recently can ??? They kept telling us the airspeed, altitude and outside temperature as we flew, and I remember being astounded at the figure.

I think you're right, it's -a gazillion outside so the hold must be heated. If pets can't be flown in winter it's likely because the baggage handling routines would leave them dangerously long on the tarmac (or, in the case of AC, dangerously long at whatever random location the baggage went to).

Having checked it out .... some airlines don't fly if the destination airport has temps below 10 deg F or above 85 deg F, so I think you're correct about that.

Sorry bout the F's ... Americans don't use celsius ... and I can't spell fah...far ... whatever it is!

Please don't apologise, I have no clue what the government is on about with these degrees C. It was 70 this afternoon, very pleasant, whereas the low 50s yesterday were a bit much for a man in shorts.