Traveling with a dog from London to NYC via Air Canada
Just wanted to type up my experience in case anyone on the internet researching traveling with a dog stumbles on this.
Having flown over to London with Nate in cargo, I was thrilled to find out that when flying back to the US we’d be able to take him in the cabin with us. Different airlines have different policies -some don’t allow dogs in the cabin at all (Virgin Atlantic) and all have different weight limits. Lufthansa has an 8kg limit, including the bag and Air Canada has a 10kg limit, also including bag.
Nate is a stocky little sausage dog, so we were thrilled to find Air Canada’s 10kg limit, even if it did mean we’d have to have a layover in Toronto. We had called to book him on our flight but hadn’t paid for him yet, so after checking in at Heathrow we had to go to the ticketing desk to pay for Nate. Not once was his bag measured (a size L Sturdibag, which I would highly recommend) or was he weighed. After that, we put him in his bag and went through security. They took him from us as we were putting our bags through the x-ray machine and then met us after we went through the metal detector. We went to a small room where I held him while they took his bag back to get x-rayed.
From there, no one really even took notice that we had a dog. At the beginning of the flight one of the airline attendants came over to say hi and inform us that he had to stay in his bag, which we already knew. We did open up his bag a few times during the flight to give him a neck scratch and slip him some pretzels.
We got off the plane in Toronto and had to go through US customs at the Toronto airport, which was fine since it meant that we were able to make a quick escape at LaGuardia. The customs agent quickly checked his paperwork, which only entailed seeing that he had a current rabies vaccine. When going through security again, they had me carry Nate through the metal detector like a baby while his bag went through the x-ray machine. Beyond that, Nate could have been any other carry-on. No one asked for any documentation or anything.
As for Nate, we couldn’t have asked for him to be better behaved. He snuggled up with his lambchop toy most of the flight and the only time he made a peep was when one of the flight attendants was handing out snacks. We like to think he was just trying to request the chicken fajita wrap with that bark.
Hopefully someone somewhere finds this and finds it helpful!
