1075 Pet transport

We are bringing one of our cats to Italy. We have 3 and had found homes for all of them but my wife was really upset about losing the oldest of them. As this was a bit of an afterthought we've messed up the timings for jabs and it means the cat will have to come on a couple of weeks after us. British Airways will carry pets and the budget airlines won't. Does anyone know whether the cat can be handed in at customs in the UK and we pick him up the other? Or will one of us have to fly back to the UK and get him? As it's BA it won't be particularly cheap to have to fly back.On the BA website it mentions a £100.00 handling charge and a weight charge but not whether the pets need to be accompanied in the plane by the owner. As the cat would be in the baggage hold anyway it seems a bit daft to expect the owner to be flying in the cabin.

Category
General chat about Italy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 08/09/2005 - 03:20

It's quite normal for animals to be shipped on their own, but, surely the best people to ask would be the transporter them selves ???

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 08/09/2005 - 14:13

my 2 kitties have just moved to alicante. jetsetpets and jets4pets both have a website and provide good service in sorting everything out for you. We just took the cats to manchester and the inlaws collected them at the other end- a bit wary and scared, but fighting fit 2 days later.There are all sorts of different regulations depending on which airline you use, which airports etc so it was good to have someone else do the practicalities for us.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 08/10/2005 - 18:37

[QUOTE=smucat]There are all sorts of different regulations depending on which airline you use, which airports etc so it was good to have someone else do the practicalities for us.[/QUOTE]

It certainly is complicated. BA want £355.00 for the cat to go as cargo but
will only charge an £85.00 handling fee if you accompany the cat on the flight - which makes it cheaper to fly back to the UK to pick the cat up. As the cat goes in the baggage hold and has to be handed over and picked up by BA staff this doesn't make much sense to me. Alitalia allow an animal in a carrier into the cabin and only charge 5 Euro per kilo with no handling fee, but they'll only fly from the UK and won't carry animals inbound to the UK. They also don't fly direct to any of the Tuscan airports.

I'll try your recommendations.