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Thread: Plane fare & crate size to move dog from US to Welly; self-arranging pet transport

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    96

    Default Plane fare & crate size to move dog from US to Welly; self-arranging pet transport

    Hi,
    I got a quote from International Pet Transport LAX to transport our St. Bernard / black lab mix from LA to Wellington, and complete the necessary paperwork, inspections, etc, etc along the way. Not cheap! $3141 USD. That does not even include transport from our location to LA, which we'd have to handle. They quoted me a flight fare of $1840, LAX-AKL-WLG. Now, I could find a cheaper fare for a PERSON for that same flight! Should it cost that much for a dog?! Now, Dorothy is about 95 pounds, she is not small, but still...

    Second question: Because of her size (about 30" tall standing), and airline requirements that a travel crate must be sufficient size for a dog to stand, sit, turn around naturally, the recommended crate size is, according to IPT LAX, bigger than the luggage door on the flight from Auckland to Welly. I.e. the crate wouldn't fit on the plane, i.e. the Shado-Lans quarantine person may have to actually drive from near Welly all the way to Auckland to pick her up. And of course her crate would be sealed during this whole journey and it would be some many hours until the poor thing would arrive back at Shado-Lans and get out and "do her duty". Now I think I can negotiate to get her into the next smaller size crate - which is "marginal" for her height. In the meantime, has anyone had a similar experience and could shed light on the subject?

    Oh and one more...has anyone moved a pet from the US to NZ without using an agency like IPT LAX, was it worth the effort, and how much did you save?

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Deep South, USA
    Posts
    37

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Wahlet View Post
    Hi,
    I got a quote from International Pet Transport LAX to transport our St. Bernard / black lab mix from LA to Wellington, and complete the necessary paperwork, inspections, etc, etc along the way. Not cheap! $3141 USD. That does not even include transport from our location to LA, which we'd have to handle. They quoted me a flight fare of $1840, LAX-AKL-WLG. Now, I could find a cheaper fare for a PERSON for that same flight! Should it cost that much for a dog?! Now, Dorothy is about 95 pounds, she is not small, but still...

    Second question: Because of her size (about 30" tall standing), and airline requirements that a travel crate must be sufficient size for a dog to stand, sit, turn around naturally, the recommended crate size is, according to IPT LAX, bigger than the luggage door on the flight from Auckland to Welly. I.e. the crate wouldn't fit on the plane, i.e. the Shado-Lans quarantine person may have to actually drive from near Welly all the way to Auckland to pick her up. And of course her crate would be sealed during this whole journey and it would be some many hours until the poor thing would arrive back at Shado-Lans and get out and "do her duty". Now I think I can negotiate to get her into the next smaller size crate - which is "marginal" for her height. In the meantime, has anyone had a similar experience and could shed light on the subject?

    Oh and one more...has anyone moved a pet from the US to NZ without using an agency like IPT LAX, was it worth the effort, and how much did you save?

    Thanks!
    I'm curious about this myself. The quote I got from Jetpets was (Booking service: airfreight (Air New Zealand, LAX to Christchurch) $672.81, USDA (endorsements/overtime sealing) $375.00 and handling fee (Jet Pets, Inc.) $420.00 - total $1,467.81).

    Looks like I can save myself $420 if I do it w/o JetPets.

    I'm going to try and contact the USDA office to find out exactly what exactly JetPets does. I have a feeling I can do it myself.

    Edit: I've put in an inquiry with the USDA and should hear a response back within 5 days. I'll post all my findings here. I'm determined to do this w/o a pet transportation service.
    Last edited by TheDude; 21st January 2008 at 07:45 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Posts
    10

    Default

    Search the forum and you'll find some excellent links to the pet shipping requirements. Complicated, but anyone should be able to do it themselves without involving a third-party fee.

    Good luck!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    USA=>Welly=>BoP=>USA
    Posts
    368

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Airways Ed View Post
    Search the forum and you'll find some excellent links to the pet shipping requirements. Complicated, but anyone should be able to do it themselves without involving a third-party fee.

    Good luck!
    Does anyone here have first hand experience importing their pets from North America or South Africa? ...or any place else with rabies, etc.? I think it's much easier from Great Britain... or Hawaii.

    We considered it and decided that it was not something we wanted to tackle with all the rest of the stuff going on. In retrospect, I'm very glad we did. Both the vet doing the preship work and the quarantine facility were on the wrong track and IPT straightened the mess out. We wouldn't have caught the errors in time to get our cats here. I also got lots of wrong/half information from airlines while trying to sort out the shipmet of the cats across US.

    (Geez! That's kind of a gloomy post! I hope I don't do this the rest of the day!)

    Nathan

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Palmy- from US
    Posts
    2,516

    Default

    I don't know about other airlines, but I know that you have to use a shipping agent to ship a pet on AirNZ.

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