Below is the latest flight updates to the UK and be aware this has been changing often.
Cathay- not taking pets out of HK
Lufthansa– not taking pets out of HK
KLM– Embargo to UK
Qatar– 2 flights per month with 7 days notice
Finnair – Not taking pets from HK (apart from Finnish citizens & residents)
British Airways – 1 flight a day to LHR which can normally accept up to a combined maximum of 8 pets.
Currently for BA there is approximately 100x more demand than supply
We appreciate this is very stressful trying to get a flight for your pet, and the cost of the BA flight fees
are also very high in 2021.
In this current situation its incredibly difficult to get the desired dates that you wish. British Airways are also limited by the HARC (Heathrow Animal Reception Centre) who has a cap on daily pet arrivals. This is mainly due
to Heathrow now being the only entry point into the UK as carriers stop flying to other airports in the UK
and keep their LHR route along with the increased amount of overseas workers returning to UK due to
losing employment because of covid 19. The HARC has only a capacity for so many animals.
Other airlines – Most airlines stopped service to UK after the announcement of the UK variant of the
covid 19 virus. However this happened Hong Kong shut the door on direct passenger flights from UK with a ban on anyone entering Hong Kong if they had been in the UK for the previous 21 days. HK government
also implemented quarantine on all air crew arriving to Hong Kong unless they flew from Taiwan, China
or Anchorage. Since they implanted this ruling, airlines have reduced their service to Hong Kong
drastically. When this will improve we don’t know but we estimate nothing will change till Hong Kong
lifts the quarantine requirement on air crew and lifts the ban on UK direct inbound passenger flights.
Options that may help-
Fly your pet ‘commercial shipment’ rather than non-commercial shipment, this means you don’t have to
follow the ‘5 day rule’ (travel within 5 days of your pet).
Get everything ready so your pet can travel at very short notice (1 week) so we may look for last-minute
flight availabilities with the airline just arising 7- 10 days before departure date.
The above is clearly very challenging for most people and not the tailored considerate service we aim for
but is a fair representation of what is realistic to avoid possibly 2 month waits.
Of course, another alternative is to wait-and-see how airline routes are once COVID-vaccines are all
rolled out worldwide.