Reader's Question ─ Flying Dogs

Luke Ferris writes:

Hi there,

I just came across your blog which seems to fill a very important niche! Thanks for putting it together.

I’m currently studying for my PPL here in London. This is part of a longer term plan to do regular trips out to our house close to Cahors (not so very far from Limoges).

There are a couple of reasons for this. Primarily, I just love the idea of flying us over myself but a significant second reason in my mind was the ability to more easily transport our little Welsh Terrier. To date, the only way of getting her across is to drive via the channel tunnel which is fine for longer trips with a leisurely drive down, but not great for shorter ones.

My assumption was that given she’s fully passported, chipped and vaccinated and very used to stopping by French vets for her return leg checkup that this would be trivial – I’d just load her into the plane with the rest of us, fly to France and back with no rules broken.

I’m now not so sure though – I’ve seen suggestions online that dogs can’t be flown into France on GA aircraft and I’ve also seen indications that arrival in the UK might have to be via Biggin Hill’s pet clearance scheme, and even that the latter might still not be possible unless you are a commercial company on an approved route.

Whilst finding this is impossible won’t deter me from learning to fly, I’d love to hear more from somebody that has looked into this in detail or better still, does this on a regular basis!

Many thanks for any information you can provide.

Yours

Luke

Comments

[George]

Better to put the dog in a kennel. Or find a dog sitter also the poor animal has to fly without ear protection in a light aircraft this is very noisy.

If you have to stop at an airfield in the uk it's no big deal you can then continue your internal flight look to see what the GAR platform has to say this is where you register people traveling with you on a flight for customs.

Good luck with your ppl you might consider contacting Roger at Limoges air club he is an excellent teacher instructor and it's far less expensive than in the uk 🇬🇧 you can still get your uk ppl with him and he had with lots of experience with crossing channel.

Georgefwallace@msn.com

[Rich Sims]

This subject arose before, possibly on the Flyer forum, and I'm not entirely certain you can take dogs in a light aircraft.

Daft, I know, but a call to possibly a charter company ( exec jets or light twins, i.e. London Exec) will shed some light on it.

You can get dog ear defenders over the internet, our dogs love flying...I think!