Pets on the fly - traveling by air with your furry friends

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Pets on the fly - traveling by air with your furry friends

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Pets wait in cages at the Incheon International Airport before their travels overseas with their owners. Song Ha-rin’s family went to Paris with her dog last February. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Heartbroken by the thought of leaving their dogs and cats lonely while traveling overseas, more pet owners are beginning to bring their animals along with them onto airplanes.

According to the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency, which runs the necessary tests to confirm animals are safe to travel to other countries, the number of dogs and cats inspected last year was 13,843, which is about 1.5 times more than the number seen four years ago. Many don’t want to put their pets into the cargo area beneath the plane, so the number of passengers bringing their pets onboard has also steadily increased to 5,940 last year from 5,314 in 2014.

Veterinarian Lee Jin-won of Laussane Animal Hospital said the number of inquires on how to travel with pets jumped by 10-fold in the past 10 years. Lee, who started running a website in 2006 that provides information on traveling with pets, recalled that he only saw one or two inquiries a month in the beginning. Lee said overall the number of inquiries has jumped hugely as there are now many other hospitals and agencies that take questions and many will go to those instead of coming to him for answers.

After checking your pet is healthy enough to travel overseas, the next step for pet owners should be checking which airlines allow pets on their planes, and whether they allow pets to travel along with passengers instead of in the cargo area. Many owners prefer to take their pet with them to their seats as there have been some cases reported of pets found dead at the destination after being put into the cargo area.

Owners should do their homework and check the rules for each airline.

Two of the major airlines in Korea, Korean Air and Asiana, have similar rules when it comes to getting the pet on board. They allow dogs, cats and birds on to the plane, but say no to rabbits and hamsters or reptiles like iguanas. Some dog species known for their aggressiveness and some types of birds including chickens are also not allowed to fly. All animals must be at least eight weeks old. It costs $200 to bring any animal on to the plane.

The rules for having an animal in the passenger area are tighter. A pet must be in a cage, and the total weight of the animal and cage together cannot exceed five kilograms (11 lbs).

Considering each airline has different weight limits for animals allowed to go into the passenger area, some choose their travel destinations based on the routes offered by each airline that allows pets onboard.

That’s what one pet owner Song Ha-rin did when she decided to go to Paris last February. Her dog weighed 6.4 kilograms and she found out that Air France has a limit of eight kilograms for a pet and its cage. Germany’s Lufthansa allows a pet up to eight kilograms to fly with passengers, and Air Canada and United Airlines allow pets up to 10 kilograms. Among the local Korean airlines, T’way Airlines is the most lenient as it allows pets up to seven kilograms on board.

However, not everybody is so happy with animals getting on a plane. Sometimes animals start to bark or make noises during the flight and bother some passengers who did not sign up for flying with animals. When this happens there is little flight attendants can do.

“Complaints of barking dogs are often reported, but since the passenger with the pet did not violate any rules, there is nothing we can do,” said an official with an airline.

Hence, airlines often alert passengers that there is going to be a traveler with an animal on board before departure. If anyone expresses their discomfort, the flight attendants will try to accommodate them by offering to move their seat.

Besides looking for airlines, pet owners also need to check what documents they need to have ready to fly with animals, as each country could require different documents at customs. Some of the most commonly required documents include papers that prove the animal has been getting regular vaccine shots and a record indicating that the animal has had a rabies vaccination, alongside the general health information of the animal.

One of the basics many do first is putting a microchip with basic information about the animal into its body. Some countries don’t require animals to have such a chip, but Korea requires it for animals trying to enter from overseas countries.

Lee Sol-saem, who is preparing to travel with a five-year-old Maltese to Japan this fall, started preparing early on. Lee transplanted the chip into the pet in November, and she got the dog’s blood sample and sent it over to Japan to prove that the dog has the antibody for rabies. It is absolutely necessary for dogs in Korea, which has seen cases of rabies, to prove the dog has an antibody when traveling to a country that has never seen any reported case of rabies, such as Japan.

It is also helpful to check hotels, restaurants and cafes that allow pets at your destination. So Gyu-seong, who brought two dogs to Phuket, Thailand, last summer said owners should also be aware of the contact information and the location of animal hospitals nearby your hotel.

“The weather was so hot and it was too dangerous to leave the dogs alone in a car,” said So.

Experts say that long flights can be mentally and physically taxing for animals. Veterinarian Lee Hye-won at Choong Hyun Animal Hospital in southern Seoul said that long flights can give some stress to pets. Injecting a tranquilizer could be one way to minimize the animal’s stress, Lee said, but it could lower the pet’s body temperature, which can be dangerous.

Lee recommends pet owners should train their pets for about a month before leaving so that they can get used to being in a cage. They can try giving snacks to pets when they are in a cage or have them sleep in it. Although many worry about the stress that their pets might face when they are away from owners, leaving animals at home can be better considering the stress they get from being in a new location, not to mention the time spent in a cage during a long flight.

BY PECK SOO-JIN [summerlee@joongang.co.kr]
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