Can anyone point me in the right direction, I am exporting a puppy to Sweden, the new owner wishes to fly over and me meet them at the airport with puppy and they wish to fly back  with puppy in cabin, a friend did this last year with City Airline from Manchester but they are no longer in buisness.
Does anybody know which airline will allow this ? the puppy will be under 3 months and already has microchip and passport , no rabies vaccs required as under 3 months, just waiting for new owner to get permission from Swedish authorities to allow puppy into country (this is also new from Jan 2012)

thank you in advance

I tried to organise flying a puppy direct with an airline but I just wasn't allowed to do it - although I'd managed to do it back in 2009. In the end I used an agent - Ladyhayes - Alison there was very, very helpful.

Yes we have tried to arrange a flight with puppy as cargo ourselves but weren't allowed to , airlines will now only allow agents to book as cargo.
The route we are now trying is the new owner fly over and take puppy back in cabin as carry on luggage.

Just double check this with your country and Sweden - I will be importing to Ireland soon and was told that I am absolutely not allowed to bring the pup in under 3 months with no Rabies Vax. So I have to wait.

I've just exported a kitten to Sweden just over a week ago -same scheme with pets passport but no rabies. There is NO direct flight to Sweden any longer that will allow animals in the cabin, so we gave up and drove all the way. You can fly with KLM but then must change flights in Amsterdam -and if the wait for the next flight is over a certain period of time, the animal has to go into the airport's quarantine centre (for a fee). Or you can fly with FinnAir to Helsinki and change flights there. In both examples there was a LONG waiting period between flights (total travel time ended up being around 11-13 hours counting both flights and change over), in Helsinki it was many hours. I can't rememberer which now (you will find all details on both airlines' websites), but one of the airlines will ONLY allow the animal in a soft bag UNDER the seat in front of you, like hand luggage, and the dimensions given was no more than 20 cms tall! The kitten was that height herself! Think it was KLM. The other one allowed normal handluggage dimensions. Both made a charge for allowing the animal (around 70 euro) and KLM were extremely expensive to start with (roughly twice the cost of a direct flight to Sweden with SAS), which is why we abandoned the idea. It seemed fairer to the kitten to drive, even though it took a very long time.

It will simply mean the new owner researching which airline gives the best deal for them to fly with pup, most of them allow a pup under 5kg as hand luggage in the cabin as long as the soft airline carrier (like a sports bag with ventilation) fits under the seat.  They Will need to book it at the same time as their won ticket.

I have had two pups fly with their new owners at 8 and 9 weeks, the first to Spain and the second to the USA,.

Has anyone been able to import a pup IN without the rabies vax/under 4 months?

That's definitely not allowed into the UK or Ireland, some EU and other countries do/did allow it. 

Recently there was a cock up between someone importing a puppy to Holland from Tunisia via Spain. 

The pup had been wrongly issued with a Pet Passport, and then developed Rabies in Holland, where it and other dogs had to be Put to sleep and around 40 human contacts needed to be treated (late so who knows what will happen).

With the over relaxation with the new rules (no titre test for EU and listed countries and only 3 months after titre for all others) I dread to think when the first case of Rabies will be brought into the UK.

Just double check this with your country and Sweden

Sweden allows it if you apply for a license and the animal must be no more than 89 days old -the license will say how long it is valid for. A puppy can be brought in at 8 weeks but a kitten MUST have turned 12 weeks therefore you have a total of just 6 days in which to bring a kitten to Sweden without rabies vaccination.

Thank you all for your input, we do have another option which is the pup travelling back with someone from Sweden in the car via the Euro tunnel , but they go back on 23rd June and the licence has only just been applied for and takes a min of 15 days to obtain, then the original has to be sent over here and travel with the pup, so time is very tight with this option :-(
The new owner has spoken to SAS in Sweden and she says they told her it IS possible to flu a pup as hand luggage, I'm now waiting for her to confirm this is correct.

That is incorrect about SAS I'm afraid -this ONLY applies for flights NOT from the UK, only other countries. I remember it was very hard to find the info, shall have a look to see if I can locate it again.

The license can be sent directly to a UK address to speed things up, we had this done.

This confirms SAS will not take pets in the cabin from the UK:
http://www.flysas.com/en/uk/Travel_info/Other-travel-information/Travel-with-pets/
When flying to/from UK or Ireland, service animals are accepted for travel in the cabin with the exception of Aberdeen and Manchester. Due to government regulations, other pet animals are not allowed for transport in the cabin or as checked baggage. ("Service dogs" highlighted in red.)

To be honest with how hot it gets in the cabin I would always prefer to have the dog/pup travel as excess baggage in the hold on same flight. 

You have to check in early, but they won't take pup/dog away until about 15 minutes before human boarding and the dog is brought out to baggage claim the other end.

it will be much more comfortable and a better temperature, a roomier varikennel in the hold.

With the owner on the same flight they can check it is safely boarded, remind the crew there is a dog/pup on board etc. 

Oh darn , that's a spanner in the works re SAS not allowing pups in cabins from the UK.
We were going down the route of cargo in the first instance as this was how the new owner imported her last pup , but SAS wouldn't allow me to book the pup on myself it has to now be done through an agent (such as Ryslip) but the quotes are looking pricey.
It may work out that the licence arrives in time for him to travel back via road/ eurotunnel, but we're not banking on that :-(

Back to the drawing board

The third option is Excess/Checked baggage they travel in the hold like Cargo but the price is a lot less (usually a standard fee) as the owner accompanies, cgecjs in/delivers and collects the dog as I outlined above. 

It's usually same price as in the cabin but for dogs bigger than what would fit into the tiny carrier allowed in the cabin which would only hold and 8 weeks old pup of my medium breed at a real pinch.

The third option is Excess/Checked baggage

Brainless as my link explained checked baggage is not possible.

It is a VERY long journey to drive via channel tunnel. When we left, we stayed in a hotel a couple of miles off the tunnel so we could set off first thing the following morning. (We live 4 hours drive from Folkestone.) It took us 15 hours, with just 2 very short stops, to get to Southern Sweden. We then stayed overnight with a friend and the next day drove the next 8 hours up to Stockholm. On the way back, we wanted to go all the way home without using a hotel, so started off in Southern Sweden again, left at 5 am, but hit serious roadworks (and 34 C heat) in Belgium and France, missed the tunnel train we had booked, and the entire journey ended up taking us 27 hours -not counting the trip from Stockholm and down south. With a pup it would necessitate a lot of stops and the important thing is then to check with ALL the other countries involved (i.e. France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark) if they allow pups NOT vaccinated against rabies to be out. With the kitten it wasn't so bad as she stayed in a big cage all the time and didn't need to leave the car. The Swedish ministry did say though the person who imports must check with all countries they drive through.

If I'd had more money available at the time, I'd have taken the ferry to Denmark from England.

I think you may have misread it, it says other animals not dogs or cats.

"When flying to/from UK or Ireland, service animals are accepted for travel in the cabin with the exception of Aberdeen and Manchester. Due to government regulations, other pet animals are not allowed for transport in the cabin or as checked baggage. Contact Trust Forwarding for more information:"

Actually it can be read two ways, as it is after the bit about dogs and cats allowed in Cabin..

I flew to USA from UK with a dog as checked baggage in 2010 and ditto to Finland 2006, but thigns are ver changing.  It may be best to check by phoning them.

It gives teh impression here: http://www.flysas.com/en/uk/Travel_info/Other-travel-information/Travel-with-pets/Pet_in_cargo_hold/ that it is possible????  It could be as with Amercian that they can fly out of UK this way but not into UK.

> the important thing is then to check with ALL the other countries involved (i.e. France,

France do not allow them in befiore 3 months, so in effect they have to have the Rabies vaccs and wait the three weeks.

I think you may have misread it, it says other animals not dogs or cats.

"When flying to/from UK or Ireland, service animals are accepted for travel in the cabin with the exception of Aberdeen and Manchester. Due to government regulations, other pet animals are not allowed for transport in the cabin or as checked baggage. Contact Trust Forwarding for more information:"

Actually it can be read two ways, as it is after the bit about dogs and cats allowed in Cabin..

I read this as no animal other than a 'service animal' :-(

I think you may have misread it, it says other animals not dogs or cats.

No Brainless you have misread it -the "other animals" refers to any animal NOT a service animal. :) We did phone to double check and this is less than a month ago.

Going to Finland is different as there are direct flights there which accept animals eg. FinnAir. It's SAS that don't accept them and they are the only airline (other than Ryan Air and similar, which do not take animals anyway) that travel directly to Sweden.

Getting wrong end of stick is my forte, LOL!

That is a shame though.

I think I'd still do the two flights option with airline that does allow pets as checked baggage/excess baggage (when I did Finland I had to take a second flight from Helsinki to Kemi/Tornio), as even with a few hours between flights you can take pup out for a wee, or just to socialise while you wait, and the total journey will still be a lot shorter than driving.

The main advantage with checked baggage is minimum time away from you, compared to Cargo where they want them 4 or 5 hours before a flight and then there is usually delay getting them the other end, so they are cooped up for a long time in the crate.

its a minefield out there it used to be easy , you used to be able to book pup as cargo yourself and new owner could collect other end.
The option we are now going for is an agent booking the flight and us meeting them at Heathrow and handing over the puppy, another agent wanted the pup the day before which we aren't happy about , just awaiting the qoute and hopefully it will be full steam ahead , only got a few weeks before pup goes over 3 month age.
I believe he will be flying SAS as checked Cargo,luckily it's a short enough flight to Sweden thankfully .

but it still means 5 extra hours locked in a crate if you go Cargo versus being able to keep pup with you until they need to load it, so you can get pup out when breaking the journey.