airlines shipping pets

For Immediate Release:

A military police dog has gone missing after a flight from Norway, WTOP reported:

A Norwegian military dog is missing on the grounds of Dulles International Airport.  "The airline called me to the gate and told me my dog had escaped," Gunn Anita Fossli, a platoon commander for the Norwegian Armed Forces Military Police, tells WTOP.  The 20-month-old Doberman was crated, but somehow ended up outside of the travel box and on the tarmac of an Iberian Airlines flight Wednesday night.

Read the rest of the article here.

This highlights the importance of using pet friendly airlines, particularly for international travel.  Most airlines are not set up to handle live animals appropriately, so using airlines that do not have a pet safe policy in place can lead to these kinds of incidents.  Also, we always recommend metal crates for military and police dogs, in order to make sure that they do not escape while in transit.

Yesterday, the new airline being marketed as the first pets-only airline, PetAirways, was on Good Morning America.  You can watch the video here.  In actuality, there was another pet airline that got similar buzz called Companion Air,  a few years ago. Unfortuantely, this Florida upstart, after a large amount of initial funding and press, was not able to get off the ground.