Have you flown with your dog? How easy was it? Was it expensive?

[dillite]

I posted this in chat as well as it gets more traffic, but hoping that someone here might be able to advise.

I am looking at some holidays and was wondering how hard it would be to take my dog with me and how much roughly to budget for it. Have any of you taken your pets on holidays with you? Was it easy? I know about all the vaccinations/ passports bit, it's the airline bit that interests me, and there seems to be very little info out there.

I haven't but there is a feature in the Sunday Times today about it.

How does it work, where does the dog sit? I have The Times so am going to read up on it. I don't have a dog but am really intrigued.

the dog doesn't sit next to you, appealing as the idea is...

they go in a pressurised part of the hold. I've been on flights where you can hear the barking.

With the luggage?

It's very expensive.
About 1k to fly to the USA.

This guy took his dog to NY from London. Had to go Lufthansa via Frankfurt. He kept the dog on board with him.

Depending on where you are going will depend on how expensive it will be. We moved to Germany (so not a holiday) and flew our Yorkie on Lufthansa and it only cost £100 and our cat they just charged as extra luggage. They are very good with flying pets and I actually think you can fly with them in the cabin but I might be wrong. My friend moved to Canada and the cost to take her cat was well over £1k and that's one way.

I am guessing it will be expansive to take on holiday.

I vaguely recall something to the effect that no pets are allowed in the cabin departing the UK (except presumably guide dogs). So the chap going via Frankfurt might have gone by road/ferry from there.

but purely academic interest, no experience.

Govt.uk/take-pet-abroad is mentioned in The Times article.

Thank you all. I tend to stick to Europe, so am mostly after those experiences. Will look at that Times article (and will finally use that subscription that I keep forgetting to cancel). I have found vague references to some airlines allowing dogs on board and some getting freight companies to fly them, but there's nothing certain anywhere, which is rather annoying. It would be even more annoying if my question wasn't hypothetical but I actually wanted to arrange the flights.

I know people who take their dog n holiday but they go by road not air, would that be an option?