As the Covid-19/Coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc across the globe, the travel and airline industry has been incredibly hard hit and as a result, the Pet Travel industry has pretty much grounded to a halt.
Most countries, in an attempt to curve the spread of the virus, have imposed travel bans in and out of their respective countries and as a result – many airlines across the globe have had to make hard cuts on their flights, daily flight reductions, routings and capacity to carry live animals.
In addition to struggles we are facing at an airline level, our government implemented a complete lockdown with a risk level strategy phase out. We’ll be keeping a close eye on what our industry is able and unable to do at level 4, which is scheduled to start from 1 May 2020.
For pet travel, there are many factors that are included in being able to assist with your fur-babies pet travel and these are as follows:
- The airlines need to be accepting live animals
- We need to have a route that works for your fur-baby and keeping their safety as the utmost priority
- Our crate supplier needs to be open and able to pump out new crates as needed. There may be delays in this process due to the restrictions on the workforce level returning to work so careful planning needs to be done
- The state vet department needs to be open and endorsing veterinary documents and health certificates
- The flights and their cut off times need to be within the times we are allowed to operate within as there is a curfew between 20h00 and 05h00.
- Vets are supposed to only be open for emergencies/essential services so it may be tough to find one willing to perform the non-essential process of completing a veterinary health certificate
- To destinations such as the EU and UK, there is still the requirement that pets are accompanied by their owner/representative within 5 days of their travel. Owners also need to be permitted to travel within those 5 days of their fur-babies.
As a member of IPATA, we have access to all the latest and most up to date changes at an airline level as well as what routes are available and which airline will be accepting pets for transportation. We will then finalise with authorities – what movement and work will be allowed.
Rest assured that at AeroPets, we are desperate to assist our clients in getting their beloved fur-babies either to their waiting owners separated from their pets at this time or to their new homes along with their “pawrents” but we need to do so within the confines of the law and with the pets best interest at heart.
If you have any questions, please feel free to get in contact with trusted Pet Travel Agent