What you need to know about flying with pets

— -- This is a tough economic climate to launch an airline, let alone one that won't carry human beings. Yet last month Pet Airways took to the skies with one-way fares ranging from $149 to $299—and now all its flights are booked through November.

"It's a needed service," says Alysa Binder, who co-founded the company along with her husband after their Jack Russell terrier Zoe encountered a rough cross-country flight in a baggage bin a few years ago. The so-called "pawsengers" fly in the reconfigured main cabin of a Beech 1900 aircraft, along with a trained pet attendant. The route map currently consists of service from airports in and around five metropolitan areas—Long Island, Baltimore-Washington, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles County—but Pet Airways has ambitious expansion plans for 25 North American cities within a few years, and Binder says South Florida, Boston, and Phoenix are next.

It would seem Pet Airways never would have gotten off the ground if so many pet parents weren't concerned about commercial airlines transporting animals. "This is our core competency," says Binder, who like many animal advocates is not happy that so many critters are forced into belly cargo compartments.

Obviously Pet Airways isn't the answer for everyone. But before you book a flight for a furry companion, it's critical to learn more.

How airlines have performed

In recent years the U.S. Department of Transportation has provided some insight into the problems encountered by pet owners on domestic airlines. Since May 2005, the DOT's monthly Air Travel Consumer Report has included Airline Animal Incident Reports. This requirement mandates that all U.S. scheduled passenger airlines report the loss, injury or death of any pets transported. These monthly reports can be downloaded at airconsumer.dot.gov/reports.

A review of the most recent 12-month period, from July 2008 through June 2009, reveals that thankfully such incidents are relatively rare, considering the DOT estimates 2 million pets and other live animals are transported by air in the U.S. each year. This is apparent even without calculating the exact percentage of animals carried by each airline, which is not provided by the DOT. In fact, there were no incidents reported at all on domestic carriers during the months of September, January and April. But of course citing such statistics to someone who has lost a beloved pet is like quoting similar data on the safe transport of unaccompanied minors to the caregiver of a child who is lost en route.

So overall it's difficult to formulate meaningful rankings since these incidents are reported without the context of total number of pets flown, let alone total distance of pets flown. That said, here's a rundown of the 32 incidents that were recorded over the last 12 months, with commuter airlines listed alongside their major carrier partners: