Pet Transport Service to Hawaii (Hilo: transporting, to rent, credit card)

[PacificFlights]

A few post got me thinking.

How much would you be willing to pay for the following types of service?

1. You arrive at LAX and a service picks up your pet curbside or you can drop it off, takes it to their private center. The pet is removed from the crate into a indoor and outdoor kennel. The pet is watered, fed, and excercised. The carrier/crate is cleaned and dried. At a predesignated time developed to minimize the time the pet is in the carrier, they take your pet to the overnight cargo only flight where you pet flies in the main cargo cabin to Hawaii. It arrived early morning and you can pick it up anytime after Quarantine opens.

2. You arrive at LAX or drop off the pet at a at their private center. The pet is removed from the crate into a indoor and outdoor kennel. The pet is watered, fed, and excercised. The carrier/crate is cleaned and dried. The pet is trabnsported to the airport where it travels in an cargo aircaft in the main cargo carrier with an attendant aboard that can be with you pet, take it for a potty break while airborne, handle any emergency individually with the pet. The flight arrives early morining so your pet is available once Quarantine opens.

3.. You arrive at LAX and a service picks you and your pet up and takes it to their private terminal. You can remove pet from the crate in a indoor and outdoor area. You can feed, water and do what you like. The carrier/crate is cleaned and dried and you can keep it with you or syow it on the aircraft. At flight time, you and your pet boards a specialy configured aircraft with a maximum of 40 passenger with pets. You and your pet basicaly have a side row to yourself. The flight arrives mid day and your pet is taken by ground crew to Quarantine where you can pick it up

So, if someone was to offer one or all of those services, what would be consider a reasonable price for those services? Would you use it? If so why? If not why?

[MKWC]

Originally Posted by PacificFlights

2. You arrive at LAX or drop off the pet at a at their private center. The pet is removed from the crate into a indoor and outdoor kennel. The pet is watered, fed, and excercised. The carrier/crate is cleaned and dried. The pet is trabnsported to the airport where it travels in an cargo aircaft in the main cargo carrier with an attendant aboard that can be with you pet, take it for a potty break while airborne, handle any emergency individually with the pet. The flight arrives early morining so your pet is available once Quarantine opens.

Pet Airways already does this, but its on a B1900. No good for oceanic flights.

[Becca8377]

Originally Posted by PacificFlights

3.. You arrive at LAX and a service picks you and your pet up and takes it to their private terminal. You can remove pet from the crate in a indoor and outdoor area. You can feed, water and do what you like. The carrier/crate is cleaned and dried and you can keep it with you or syow it on the aircraft. At flight time, you and your pet boards a specialy configured aircraft with a maximum of 40 passenger with pets. You and your pet basicaly have a side row to yourself. The flight arrives mid day and your pet is taken by ground crew to Quarantine where you can pick it up

So, if someone was to offer one or all of those services, what would be consider a reasonable price for those services? Would you use it? If so why? If not why?

I would only be comfortable with option 3. I do not feel comfortable having unknown people take my pets out of their crates even if it's in a secure area. The location, experience, and people are unknown to my dogs so I would be too afraid of what would happen.

I would most likely not pay more than $1000 for this service. And yes I would've definitely used it when I moved to Hawaii and when I left.

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by MKWC

Pet Airways already does this, but its on a B1900. No good for oceanic flights.

Pet airways does not fly to hawaii so its meaningless in this topic!

Anyway, they are about to go bust, so that business plan isn;t something to duplicate!

[WhistlerAl]

I would pay $3000 for option 3 ,for myself and my dog, if it flew directly to Kona.

[KauaiHiker]

#1 and #2 have the problem of coordinating your own flight and a hotel between drop-off and pickup the next morning. Plus it only works for HNL. And as Becca shows, it's not the under-plane cargo people are afraid of, it's being separated from their pet. So to them, this is no better than the "cheap" alternative, and more hassle.

#3 seems like the best bet, essentially you're organizing regular charters so they don't have to do it themselves. From reading these boards, seems like you'd have enough customers to fill a flight every month. I think my wife would've said yes at $1000 per cat+person. What about extra passengers, for example families flying together? How do you let the animals on without a crate, won't that create problems with 40 cats & dogs together, even if leashed? Toss in 4 free luggage bags per pet+person, or even oversize items, and I bet you can create demand for this.

The trick is to make the whole move easier for people. If it adds hassles, they will balk at any price.

BTW, cat and dog owners have it easy. I know someone who is shipping her horses back to the mainland. Air cargo is too expensive for her, so she's sending them by boat! And probably cannot go on the boat with them.

[terracore]

We've been researching the best ways to transport 7 large parrots to the big island (understanding that they have to go through AG in HNL along the way) for 2 years. The biggest problem isn't the difficulty of the process, but how to accomplish it with the least amount of stress to the parrots. Since its not a rabies issue, but a west nile / parrot / livestock issue, its a lot more complicated than "simply" bringing a dog or cat in. Thought we had it figured out, then the chosen airline suddenly decided they now only transport dogs and cats. Back to square one.

One thing that you could offer that would be "real value" is loaning/renting of chew-proof airline kennels. The aluminum ones are about $500 a pop and hard to find at that. I would much rather pay $700 to rent 7 of them for a one-way trip than $3,500 to buy them with the hope I could recoup some of the money later selling them.

The other thing you could offer is to absorb your service fee in the rates. Commercial shippers of animals or livestock (like what you are proposing) pay substantially less to the airlines than individual shippers (I know the details, used to own a pet store) PLUS they are exempt from animal transport embargoes (the ones that are due to heavy traffic/space on plane, not the ones due to unsafe temperature conditions)

[PacificFlights]

MAHALO , keep the comments comming.

To explain some of the thinking:

#1 was base on the number of people that have wanted to use the overnight cargo only flight but found thr timing a problem because it made it hard for themt o get to the cargo area and back to the terminal for the flight. Or they found that they needed to leave hours before the earliest they could tender the pet for transport. That meant they pet would be in that crate for 5 hours BEFORe it even gets loaded. So the thinking is to have a service that relives the person from all the problems and let them take care of their transportation while a professional handles the pets transporation to Hawaii that day. This service has the ability to tailor the timimg to your needs so even if it means dropping the animal off a day or two before its flys out that can be done because its also has a professional flight transfer boarding center.

#2 is basically a cargo only flight but with an attendant on board that can handle any issues and the pets can travel, out of crate, during the flight. The flight schedyule is still a though in prograes so any comments on timing would be appreciated.

#3 is a modified passeneger aircraft capable of carrying 40 passensegers and 80 animals. A pasenegr would have their seat and a out of crate seat/stage will be for the animal.
Want to add one comment to #3, the cost you pay includes your seat, your pet seat/stage, your luggage, your carrier/crate/kennel, and whatever carryones you have, plus an animal potty, (human potty as well) and all the normal full service ammenities of a flight (I:m talking what you would have gotten in 1972, meals and such versus 2012)

The key things to get this idea to the next step is to find out the reality of what people would pay for each of the 3 options. Emphisis is that #2 & #3 can be a mingle service so a person still can ship without being on the aircraft.

I know that #3 is the prefered methiod, but if that is not possible, thoughts on #2 or #1 would be appreciated. The more honest commments, suggestions and feedback, they better chance of going from a "Humm, wonder if this is possible ? to a "check this out it can be done " which could bring the so much wanted from the investors.

[FallenIntoGreatness]

I don't have a problem being separated from my pet. I do have a problem with my dogs being treated like an inanimate object, as in thrown or ignored for hours. I would consider #1 for a little more than whatever the going airfare for a person was. Being an overnight flight my pet would sleep and reunite with me in the morning. My dogs love people and are pretty good with vets, groomers, strangers, basically anyone that gives them attention. #2 isn't that attractive to me since option #1 is good enough. I would expect #2 to be $2-300 more than option 1.

Option #3 I would pay more for since I get to travel with my pet, I would think a discount for additional pets on the same flight would make it more attractive. So for example if me and my 2 small dogs could travel together for $800 to $1200, I would consider it. A family rate would be a nice draw too. The higher figure is factoring in the higher levels of service that could be offered. I would not pay $1200 for a flight comparable to economy on a major carrier.

I see option 1 as the most practical. Animals could travel in the cabin in peace w/o bothering anyone while owners can forgo worrying that disgruntled baggage handler 3 doesn't throw their pets on the wrong plane.

[terracore]

In my case, I would pay $1000 per animal and human for option #3. So, close to 10 grand. (assuming you would take credit cards) to get to HNL, then another 3 to get from HNL to Hilo. So, 10k total.

The flight schedule would be irrelevant, if the trip was only once per month, or every 3 months, that is the date I would go.

For that kind of money, assuming there are others on the flight blowing the same size wad (giggity), I would expect a vet to accompany. Not so much for medical concerns en route, but to handle any issues that could arise during the AG process. Or instead, maybe a vet meets the plane in HI and an AG inspector has been secured (bribed?) to meet us and expedite the process.

I don't care so much for first class treatment of us humans, so upping the price for that doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather have economy treatment for myself and no stress for the parrots at the best price.

For me, the worst part of traveling with animals is that you turn them over to some stranger and hope that they arrive alive on the other side. I'm going to be transporting endangered species, and I want them treated as such. Having them tossed around like luggage by somebody making minimum wage does not sound appropriate.

Also important is an iron clad guarantee. You couldn't imagine the team of hitman lawyers I would hire to sue you into the grave if I planned this for months and at the last minute, the flight was cancelled and I was left scrambling to find a commercial alternative. There is no fine print in the world that would protect you from some guy stranded at LAX with 7 angry parrots. Seriously. If you tried to hide in the remote jungles of Vietnam, some ambulance chaser would pop out of a bowl of rice to deliver a court summons.