Transporting live animals by air has quietly become one of the most complex and fast-growing sectors in the freight industry. Airlines, airports and handlers suddenly found themselves dealing with far greater volumes of dogs, cats and other species needing to cross borders, delivering carefully controlled environments, veterinary oversight and meticulous attention to international rules.
The heart of the debate around animal airfreight is welfare. “The longer an animal is away from the owner or away from its natural habitat, whether that’s a zoo or home environment, the more stress is caused,” explains Jake Holliday, UK manager at Animal Aircare. “For us, welfare is of most importance.”
Holliday stresses that a purely logistical view is not enough. “We’re very welfare-driven,” he says. “We looked at the live animal sector and asked what are the challenges we’re seeing from ground handlers. The biggest issue was that typically they don’t want to handle live animals if possible. They want to hand it over to a professional.”
That ethos has shaped the way his team works. Dogs and cats are kept separate in temperature-controlled areas, with added measures to reduce stress. “We tend to play classical music, which is scientifically proven to reduce stress. And we spray natural pheromones around to reduce anxiety,” Holliday explains.
For more sensitive species, the demands are even greater. Reptiles may need heat above 27 degrees, birds of prey require dim light, and zoo animals such as orangutans or tigers call for specialist expertise. “It’s impossible to know the needs of every single animal,” Holliday admits. “So it’s about collaborating with shippers, couriers and airlines to preset the rooms to those needs. When we’re hiring, we look for people with zoological degrees or zoo experience, so we’ve got the right skills in the building.”
Exotic trends and new pressures
The types of animals being shipped are also changing. “The exotic trade in the last few years has gone crazy,” Holliday says. “A lot more people are interested in swapping exotic species around the world—snakes, spiders, lizards.”
Seasonal surges bring additional challenges. “You’ll see birds of prey, a big increase from UAE to the UK,” he notes. “Scotland is a massive breeding ground for those types of animals, so we tend to see different trends depending on the region.”
Handling such variety requires not only infrastructure but also flexibility. Facilities must be ready to process animals ranging from household pets to lions in transit for zoos. “We have a licence for most species,” Holliday says. “The only ones we don’t see here are fish and horses, and that’s just due to our space. But we do see monkeys, orangutans, lions and tigers. It’s a wide array.”
These shifts are also reshaping global partnerships. Airlines often prefer to rely on specialists rather than handling animals themselves. “There’s a combination of us approaching airlines saying, ‘Look, we can take away the animals out of your warehouses and put them into a purpose-built facility,’ but also airlines reaching out to us, saying they want animals in a specialist environment before travel.”
The digital push
Despite rapid growth, animal cargo remains surprisingly old-fashioned. “The live animal cargo sector is quite old-fashioned in the sense of it’s all paper based,” Holliday says. That creates inefficiencies and potential risks.
To tackle this, his team has borrowed ideas from other industries. “We’ve implemented QR code scanning so we are like a hotel reservation system. The airline tells us an OK to forward, we book the animal into a kennel, and we scan the QR code on arrival. It shows when it arrived, when it left, and opens up another space.”
It may sound basic, but in an industry still tied to paper trails, it is a significant step. The hope is that digitalisation will spread across the sector, helping both efficiency and welfare.
Regulation and the road ahead
Perhaps the greatest long-term challenge is regulation. Rules vary widely between countries and can change quickly. “It’s collaboration amongst a lot of people,” Holliday says. “The airline, the owner, the agent in the UK, and the agent in the country of origin—all need to work together to understand the regulations.”
International dialogue is essential. “We collaborate heavily around the world,” he adds. “We’ve got a partner event in Thailand in October where we’ll engage with stakeholders from around the world on understanding each other’s needs.”
Looking ahead, demand shows no sign of slowing. With pet ownership high, exotic species trade growing, and welfare under intense scrutiny, the industry faces the task of scaling up while maintaining care standards. As Holliday puts it: “Welfare and operational speed work in tandem with each other. Cutting down time from landing to leaving is paramount for the animals—and it also helps us run more efficiently.”
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Author: Edward Hardy
