Pet Travel Prices- Expect A Hike

The price of traveling with your pets has never exactly been cheap, but apparently things are about to get pricier as airline expenses are on the rise:

Airfare Watchdog Reports Rising Expense of Pet Travel

An airfarewatchdog.com poll reveals that 58 percent of respondents believe that pets should be allowed in the cabin, while 42 percent would ban them entirely. Airfarewatchdog points out some reasons why flying a pet may become not just more difficult but also as expensive as flying an additional person.

Frontier Airlines banned pets from the cabin on June 9, 2008, and now charges up to $400 to fly pets in the cargo hold. Delta and American Airlines have recently raised their in-cabin pet fee to $300 -- up from $200. United has raised its in-cabin fee to an industry-leading $350, and $500 for cargo. For years, Southwest Airlines, one of the nation's largest, has banned pets entirely except for fully trained assistance animals accompanying a person with a disability or being delivered to one. “At $350 a trip, we might be better off enrolling Browser, our canine mascot, in some hang gliding courses, or -- if the fees keep going up -- tie some helium balloons to the kennel, toss in a tracking device and hope for the best. His chances of an on-time arrival couldn't be any worse than on some airlines,” said George Hobica, founder of airfarewatchdog.

Published on Travel Technology