Private jet flights with a dog or cat, in the cabin

On a scheduled airline your dog travels in the hold. On a private flight it travels at your feet, and that single difference is why a large share of our clients fly this way in the first place. There is no cage, no loading bay and no separation, and on an empty leg it costs no more than it would on a full price charter.

What does need planning is the paperwork and the airport. Britain guards its rabies free status carefully, and the rules that apply to a private aircraft are not the same as the ones that apply to an airline. This page sets out what actually has to happen, including the part that catches people out.

Empty legs with a pet: what is realistic

Two constraints stack on top of each other here, and it is better to know that before you start looking. An empty leg only exists on the operator's dates and between the operator's airports. A pet flight only works if the operator and the route are cleared for animals. Put together, that narrows the list considerably in one direction and barely at all in the other.

This is where a broker earns the fee. We check the operator's approval and the arrival airport before we put a sector in front of you, rather than after you have fallen in love with the price. If your inbound options are thin, we will say so and look at a standard charter on an approved operator instead.

What Great Britain requires

For dogs, cats and ferrets arriving in Great Britain, in the order the steps have to happen. Getting the order wrong is the single most common mistake, and it restarts the clock.

Animals arriving from Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man need no pet passport or health certificate at all. The tapeworm treatment is not required for dogs arriving directly from Finland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Malta or Norway. If an animal arrives without meeting the requirements it can be refused entry or placed in quarantine for up to four months at the owner's expense, so nothing here is worth improvising.

Allow eight to twelve weeks from a standing start if your pet has never travelled, and considerably longer from an unlisted country because of the blood test and the three month wait that follows it.

Taking a pet from the UK to Europe

Individual countries add their own requirements on top, particularly for certain breeds, so the destination matters as much as the paperwork. We will tell you what applies to the country you are flying to when we quote.

Breeds that cannot enter the UK

Five types of dog are banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and cannot be imported into the United Kingdom: the Pit Bull Terrier, the Japanese Tosa, the Dogo Argentino, the Fila Brasileiro and, since 2024, the XL Bully.

Two points worth understanding. The assessment is based on type rather than pedigree, so a dog that substantially matches the physical description can be classified as a banned type even without papers. And a certificate of exemption held by an owner in the UK permits keeping that dog, it does not permit importing one. If there is any doubt about your dog, raise it with us at the enquiry stage and we will check before anything is booked.

Which UK airports work for a pet

The arrival airport is not a detail, it is part of the approval. A field that happily takes your aircraft may not be on the approved pairing for that operator and that route, and the reverse is also true.

In practice we work backwards: you tell us the animal at the enquiry stage, and we filter the aircraft and the airport to the combinations that are actually cleared. Because the approved list is revised, we check it against the current version for every booking rather than relying on what worked last time. Departing from the UK the question does not arise in the same way, and any business aviation terminal will see you off with a dog beside you.

On board, in practice

How many animals, and how big

This is the question we are asked before any other, and the answer is more generous than on any airline.

Planning the trip

1. Tell us about the animal first. Species, breed, size and how many. This changes the aircraft shortlist, so it belongs in the first message rather than the fifth.
2. We check approvals. Operator, route and arrival airport against the current approved list, plus the destination country's own rules if you are leaving the UK.
3. You get options. Any empty leg that genuinely works, alongside the standard charter price, with the operator's pet policy and any cleaning charge shown.
4. Your vet does the rest. Microchip, vaccination, certificate and tapeworm treatment in the right order and the right window. We will tell you the deadlines, but the appointments are yours to book.
5. Fly. Arrive fifteen to twenty minutes before departure, walk through a private terminal, and your dog boards with you.

We are brokers rather than vets. Everything above reflects the rules as they stand, but requirements change in both directions and your own vet and the relevant government authority have the final word on your animal's paperwork.

What it costs to fly with a pet

The short answer is that the animal itself changes very little. You are chartering the whole aircraft rather than buying seats, so there is no fare for a dog and no surcharge per animal. Air Passenger Duty is charged per chargeable passenger, and your dog is not one, so the tax does not move either.

Three things can add to the figure, and all three appear as their own lines in the quote rather than inside the total.

• A cleaning charge. Some operators apply one after carrying an animal, typically a modest fixed sum. Others apply none at all. We will tell you which before you book.
• A narrower shortlist. Not every operator carries pets, and into Great Britain not every operator and route is approved for them. Fewer available aircraft means less competition on price, which on an inbound sector can cost more than any cleaning fee.
• The airport. If the approved combination points you to a field that is further from you, the ground transfer grows even though the flight does not.

How the price is built

The same way as any charter, and worth understanding because it explains why two quotes on one route can differ by thousands.

Typical prices on routes that work well with a pet

Guide prices for the whole aircraft, in pounds. The empty leg column is what a repositioning sector typically starts at when one exists on the route, and the charter column is the same aircraft booked on your own dates.

The first four routes in that table are the easy ones, because journeys within the UK and from Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man need no approved route for the animal at all. On the European sectors below them, an outbound flight from Britain is straightforward and the return is the leg that needs checking.

Three ways to fly a dog, compared

Chartering the whole aircraft is not the only private option. There are also shared pet flights sold by the seat, and there is the traditional route of sending an animal in the hold or as freight. Each suits a different situation, and we would rather you picked the right one than the one we happen to sell.

The honest summary. A shared seat flight is hard to beat for one person and one dog on a long haul route that runs to a schedule, because you are only paying for what you use. The moment there are two of you, or two animals, or a route nobody publishes, the arithmetic turns: the aircraft costs the same whether it carries one passenger or eight, so a family of four with two dogs on a European sector is almost always better off with a whole aircraft. Send us both sets of dates and we will tell you which way it falls for your trip.

What these flights look like in practice

Three examples of the kind of trip we arrange most often. Prices are typical starting figures for the whole aircraft rather than quotes.

The operators we put you on

Every aircraft we offer is flown under an Air Operator Certificate issued by the UK Civil Aviation Authority or by EASA, and we name the operator on the quote so that you can check it yourself before you commit.

For a flight with an animal we look at two things beyond the certificate. Whether the operator is cleared to carry pets on the route in question, which for arrivals into Great Britain is a formal approval rather than a preference. And whether it holds an independent safety audit rating, which several of the larger operators do. Ask and we will tell you what the operator you are being offered holds, rather than leaving you to take a general assurance on trust.

Empty leg sectors available now

These are the repositioning flights our operator network has released at the moment. The list changes through the day as sectors are taken and new ones appear. Not every sector here can carry an animal, so tell us which one interests you and we will check the operator's approval and the arrival airport before confirming anything.

Ask about a flight with your pet

Send the route, the dates and a line about the animal, and we will come back with what is genuinely available. If nothing fits, we will watch the route and tell you when a suitable sector appears, which on pet flights is often the fastest way to a good price.

Call +44 7857 574938 or message the same number on WhatsApp.