Airline Pet Policies in 2026: 5 Best Airlines for Traveling With Pets
You've picked your dates, you know where you're going, and now you're stuck on the one question that decides everything: what's the best airline for traveling with pets, and what's it going to cost?
The policies read like fine print on purpose, and they're not all the same. Here's the plain-English breakdown for five of the pet friendly airlines US pet owners ask me about most.
Short answer: All five of these airlines let small dogs and cats fly in the cabin on domestic US routes, for roughly $100 to $200 each way. The real differences show up the moment you fly internationally. If you want your pet in the cabin to Europe, United Airlines is the only one of these five that broadly allows it (with a few country exceptions). American, Delta, and JetBlue won't carry a pet in the cabin across the Atlantic, and JetBlue bars pets on its UK and EU routes entirely. Alaska is the standout for larger dogs flying domestically, thanks to its climate-controlled baggage hold.
If you're a United States based pet owner trying to choose an airline for your dog or cat, whether it's a quick domestic hop or a flight to Europe, this is the breakdown.
The 5 Pet Friendly airlines at a glance
| Airline | In-cabin pets | In-cabin fee (each way) | Bigger pets (hold or cargo) | In-cabin to Europe? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United | Dogs and cats | $150 | No public cargo (PetSafe is military/government only) | Yes, on many routes — not UK, Ireland, or Sweden |
| American | Cats and small dogs | $150 | American Airlines Cargo | No — pets to Europe go by cargo only |
| Delta | Dogs, cats, birds (birds domestic only) | $150 domestic $200 international |
Delta Cargo | Main cabin only — not Delta One |
| Alaska | Dogs and cats | $100 | Cabin and climate-controlled hold (seasonal weather embargoes), plus Pet Connect cargo | No — doesn't carry pets on its Europe or Pacific routes |
| JetBlue | Small dogs and cats | $125 | None — cabin only | No — pets barred on UK and EU routes |
These fees and rules are current as of May 2026 and are each way, so a round trip is roughly double. Airlines change pet policies often, and the details can vary by aircraft and route, so confirm directly with the airline before you book. In-cabin travel always means your pet rides in a carrier under the seat in front of you, which limits it to small animals (generally up to about 20 pounds including the carrier).
In-cabin carrier size & weight by airline
Your pet rides under the seat in a carrier, so the carrier is the real gatekeeper. Here are the in-cabin maximums for each airline.
| Airline | Max soft carrier size | In-cabin weight limit |
|---|---|---|
| United | 18 x 11 x 11 in | No set weight limit — pet just has to fit and move comfortably |
| American | 18 x 11 x 11 in | 20 lb, including the carrier |
| Delta | About 18 x 11 x 11 in | No set weight limit — must fit under the seat |
| Alaska | 17 x 11 x 9.5 in | No set weight limit — must fit under the seat |
| JetBlue | 17 x 12.5 x 8.5 in | 20 lb, including the carrier |
These are soft-sided maximums, and they're guidelines that shift by aircraft, so measure your under-seat space and confirm with the airline before you commit. Hard-sided carriers usually have to be a touch smaller. The rule every airline shares: your pet has to be able to stand up, turn around, and lie down inside the carrier.
5 best airlines for traveling with pets
Small print aside, the real question is which airline will actually work for your trip. These five are the ones worth knowing.
United: the one that flies pets to Europe in the cabin
United is the standout of this group for pet friendly international travel, because it's the only one here that broadly lets small pets ride in the cabin across the Atlantic. There are exceptions worth knowing: it doesn't carry in-cabin pets to the UK, Ireland, or Sweden, among a handful of others, so check your specific destination. The in-cabin fee is $150 each way for dogs and cats.
One thing that surprises people: United's old PetSafe cargo program, the one that used to fly larger dogs in a temperature-controlled hold, isn't open to the general public anymore. It's reserved for active-duty military and government relocations. So if your dog is too big for the cabin, United isn't really your airline.
American: great domestically, cargo-only to Europe
American lets cats and small dogs fly in the cabin for $150 each way, and it's a solid domestic option. The catch is international: American does not allow pets in the cabin on transatlantic routes. If you're flying a pet to Europe with American, it travels through American Airlines Cargo as a separate booking, not under your seat. For a lot of owners, that alone rules it out for a European trip.
Delta: in-cabin to Europe, but only in the main cabin
Delta allows dogs and cats (and household birds on domestic flights) in the cabin, at $150 each way domestically and $200 internationally.
On long-haul, the limit is the cabin, not the destination: pets can't ride in lie-flat Delta One, so to bring a pet to Europe you need a main-cabin seat. Within that, Delta does carry pets in the cabin to continental Europe, and even to the Republic of Ireland if you give Ireland's Department of Agriculture advance notice. The hard no is the United Kingdom, where Delta won't accept a pet in the cabin or as baggage at all. And you can't add a pet online with Delta, you have to call reservations.
Alaska Airlines: the best of these five for a bigger dog
Alaska Airlines has the lowest in-cabin fee here at $100 each way for dogs and cats, and it's the most flexible of the five for larger dogs. Alaska Airlines takes pets both in the cabin and in a climate-controlled baggage hold on its own flights, plus a Pet Connect cargo option for unaccompanied pets. The thing to plan around is the hold: the excess-baggage option carries seasonal weather embargoes, so during the hottest and coldest stretches of the year your dog may not be cleared to fly in the hold on a given date.
Since its merger with Hawaiian Airlines, the two carriers now share this pet policy. The catch is reach: Alaska Airlines carries pets to Canada, Mexico (cabin only, no pet cargo there), and Costa Rica, but it doesn't accept pets on its newer long-haul routes (London, Rome, Tokyo) or anywhere across the Pacific. So Alaska is the champion for domestic and nearby trips, not a transatlantic option.
JetBlue: cheap in-cabin domestically, no help for Europe
JetBlue Airlines carries small dogs and cats in the cabin for $125 each way, with a cap of six pets per flight, so booking early matters. It's cabin only, with no checked-pet or cargo option at all, which means a dog too big for under the seat can't fly JetBlue, period.
And for European trips, JetBlue is a hard no: its contract of carriage explicitly bars pets on all its UK and EU routes, which includes London, Paris, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Madrid.
How to book your pet and how to check in
Adding a pet isn't always a click, and the process is different from airline to airline.
To add a pet to your reservation, Alaska, JetBlue, and American generally let you do it online or in the app, which is the easy route. United lets you add a pet online too, but only on united.com, not in the United app: choose "Travel with a pet" when you book, or add it later under My Trips. Delta is the one holdout that still has you call reservations. Whichever airline you're on, do it early, because each cabin caps how many pets it allows and those spots fill up.
Check-in is where it varies most, and it's the part that catches people. Plenty of airlines still make you check in at the airport counter with a pet, so an agent can see your pet, confirm the carrier, and take the fee. But more are letting you check in online now, and that's a genuine time-saver.
I've been pleasantly surprised this year. Flying with Poppy from Las Vegas to San Diego, I checked in online and skipped the counter line entirely. One of our clients flew a cat in the cabin from San Diego to Hawaii and was able to check in online too. Alaska and JetBlue are two that let you do this, so it's worth checking your airline rather than assuming you're stuck in line. Just build in extra time in case yours still sends you to the counter.
First class won't always take your pet
Here's one almost nobody checks until they're at the booking screen: your seat class can disqualify your pet. The reason is under-seat space. Your pet rides in a carrier under the seat in front of you, and the lie-flat premium cabins on long-haul flights don't have that space.
Across these five, JetBlue doesn't allow pets in Mint, its premium cabin, at all. Delta keeps pets out of Delta One, international business, and Premium Select. American's lie-flat Flagship cabins and United's Polaris business class can't take in-cabin pets either, for the same under-seat reason. The good news is that ordinary domestic first class, the recliner kind, usually does allow pets, because the space under the seat is still there. Alaska, for one, lets pets ride up front in its First Class.
Service animals are a different story, and a different law. Under the Air Carrier Access Act, airlines have to accommodate a trained service dog in the cabin, and they can't refuse it or bump you to another class to make room. What they can do, if your exact premium seat is an enclosed suite where the dog can't safely fit, is move you to another seat in the same class of service where it can. So a service animal isn't barred from first class, but your specific seat might change.
Which airlines fly pets in-cabin, by destination
This is the table I wish I'd had when I started. It maps in-cabin pet travel for the destinations our clients ask about most. Every cell comes down to two things: whether the airline allows a pet in the cabin on that route, and whether the destination country even lets a pet arrive in the cabin. A couple of countries (the UK and Australia) don't allow cabin arrivals from anyone, so those rows are a clean no across the board.
In the table, "Yes" means in-cabin pets are allowed, "No" means they aren't, and a dash means the airline doesn't fly there.
| Destination | United | American | Delta | Alaska | JetBlue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | No | No | No | No | No |
| Ireland | No | No | Yes⁴ | – | No |
| Spain | Yes¹ | No | Yes | – | No |
| France | Yes | No | Yes | – | No |
| Italy | Yes | No | Yes | No | – |
| Germany | Yes | No | Yes | – | – |
| Portugal | Yes | No | Yes | – | – |
| Netherlands | Yes | No | Yes | – | No |
| Greece | Yes | No | Yes | – | – |
| Mexico | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Canada | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
| Costa Rica | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Japan | Yes³ | No | Confirm² | No | – |
| Australia | No | No | No | No | – |
¹ United excludes only Bilbao in Spain. Madrid, Barcelona, and other Spanish airports are fine. ² Delta serves Japan, but I haven't been able to confirm whether it allows an in-cabin pet on that long transpacific route, so check before counting on it. ³ Japan lets pets arrive in the cabin, but only after a strict process that includes advance quarantine notification (around 40 days out) and a compliant microchip and rabies sequence, so the airline's "yes" is only half the job. ⁴ Delta carries in-cabin pets to the Republic of Ireland with advance notice to its Department of Agriculture. More broadly, Delta's European in-cabin travel is main cabin only (no pets in lie-flat Delta One), and it won't carry pets to or from the UK at all.A couple of patterns stand out. For continental Europe, United and Delta will both put a pet in the cabin (Delta in the main cabin only, not Delta One), while American won't on transatlantic routes and JetBlue won't carry pets to the EU at all. The UK is the true no for everyone, since it requires pets to arrive as manifest cargo rather than in the cabin. Ireland is the one people miss: Delta will fly a pet there in the cabin with advance notice. And for Mexico, Canada, and Costa Rica, you've got real choice.
As always, these are current as of May 2026 and shift by route and aircraft, so confirm with the airline before you book.
Cargo and checked pets
Cargo doesn't map cleanly to a country grid the way the cabin does, because eligibility depends on each airline's program and the exact route. Here's the per-airline picture.
| Airline | Cargo or checked pets? | Key restrictions |
|---|---|---|
| United | No, for the public | Cargo (the old PetSafe program) is limited to military and government relocations |
| American | Via American Airlines Cargo | UK and Ireland only to London Heathrow or Manchester; no checked pets to Japan; carry-on also excluded to Jamaica and parts of South America |
| Delta | Yes, via Delta Cargo | UK and Australia are manifest cargo only (the UK through an animal reception centre); Egypt is embargoed |
| Alaska | Hold and Pet Connect cargo, but largely domestic | Seasonal weather embargoes on the hold; no pet cargo to Mexico, Europe, or its Pacific routes |
| JetBlue | No | Cabin only, with no cargo or checked-pet option |
For any cargo move, the destination country's import rules apply on top of the airline's, and the strictest destinations (Australia, the UK, Hawaii) almost always require manifest cargo plus advance notice or quarantine.
If you're flying With your pet to Europe, read this part twice
Here's the trap. Picking an airline that allows your pet in the cabin to Europe is only half the job. The airline's pet policy and the destination country's entry requirements are two completely separate things, and you have to satisfy both.
Even if United happily seats your dog in the cabin to Spain, the EU still requires the full entry paperwork: an ISO microchip, a valid rabies vaccination in the right order, and an EU animal health certificate completed by a USDA-accredited vet and endorsed by USDA before you fly. Miss that, and the friendliest airline policy in the world won't get your pet through the border. If your dog is traveling on an old EU pet passport, that stopped working for US residents this spring, which I wrote about in the 2026 EU pet passport change.
The cleanest way to get the entry side right is my step-by-step guide to getting your pet into the EU, which walks through every document and deadline in order.
Got a big dog? You Have Less options
In-cabin travel only works for pets small enough to fit under the seat, so if you've got a bigger dog, the field shrinks. Alaska will fly it in a climate-controlled baggage hold on its own flights, which is the simplest path. American and Delta move larger pets through their cargo divisions as a separate booking. United no longer offers cargo pet shipping to the public, and JetBlue doesn't carry pets outside the cabin at all.
For international moves with a large dog, this usually means working with a professional pet shipper, which is exactly the kind of thing we handle.
Common mistakes to avoid
The bookings that go sideways tend to share a few causes.
The biggest is assuming "this airline allows pets" means "this airline allows pets on my route." In-cabin rules change the second you cross an ocean, so always check the policy for your exact international route, not the general domestic one.
The second is forgetting the fee is each way. Two $150 charges on a round trip is $300, and that's before the carrier and the vet paperwork.
The third is booking late on a cabin-limited flight. Airlines cap how many pets ride in each cabin, so the pet spots fill up. Book your pet on at the same time as your own seat.
And the fourth is treating the airline policy as the whole job. For any international trip, the country's entry requirements are the part that actually gets your pet through the border, and they take far longer to sort out than buying a plane ticket.
How Poppy flies, and the carrier I swear by
Poppy's a dachshund, so she's small enough to ride in the cabin, which I'll always choose over the hold when the route allows it. My go-to for her now is the Petsfit expandable carrier, and it's my favorite to travel with for two reasons.
In its smaller sizes it fits under the seat on most airlines (still double-check the dimensions against your specific airline and aircraft), and it expands on both sides once we're settled in, so she gets real room to stretch out on a long flight.
Whatever carrier you choose, measure your pet and your under-seat space against the airline's limits before you buy, because "airline approved" means different dimensions on different carriers.
→ This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.If you'd rather not decode all of this yourself
Matching the right airline to the right route, and lining it up with the destination's entry rules, is most of what we do at Pet Passport Club. The fastest starting point for a European trip is my step-by-step EU guide, which walks you through everything you need to know to plan a pet-friendly vacation.
If you'd rather have the whole thing planned or handled for you, our Co-Pilot and Full-Service Concierge tiers do that. And if you're not sure where things stand or what you actually need, a consult call is a full hour to get your questions answered and leave with a clear picture of what's ahead — $75, applied toward any service if you decide to book.
Mia + Poppy 🐾
