Pet relocation from Bengaluru

Moving a pet from Bengaluru

Both founders live in Bengaluru, so the first meeting is in your living room with your dog or cat, and the plan gets written after that. If you're in one of the city's gated communities, our people come to your door for the road leg and stay with your pet up to the handover at the airport. On the way back the same people meet the flight.

Two trips matter before an international flight from here. The first is to AQCS Bengaluru, the government quarantine office that signs the export certificate. It's at Hessarghatta, not at the airport, so it's its own journey with your pet, by appointment, about a week before the flight. AQCS issues the certificate after it examines the animal, and it's valid for 10 days, which is why we book that appointment backwards from the flight and never the other way round.

The second is the airport itself, out at Devanahalli. Menzies Aviation runs Cargo Terminal 1 for international cargo at Kempegowda, and its new domestic cargo terminal handles the domestic cargo of every airline at the airport. A pet flying as cargo is checked in there, through the cargo side, which isn't the passenger terminal you'd fly from.

Bengaluru's weather is kind to pets. IMD's averages for the city put the hottest month, April, at a mean daily high of 34°C, with the heaviest rain in September and October. The heat that closes a route is usually somewhere else. Emirates, for example, carries snub-nosed breeds through Dubai only under set conditions between November and April, so a Pug or a Persian leaving Bengaluru in May needs a different airline or a different month.

Real families have left from here with us. Janine and Shaun Ricketts moved Tickles, their cat, from Bangalore to South Africa, and her crate label in the film from our phones reads Emirates, BLR to DXB. BS Anusha's dog flew from Bangalore to Singapore in June, and in her words the service included a homestay boarding, which she found super convenient.

City to city, Bengaluru to Delhi or Mumbai is a domestic flight with no border, but the airline still decides. Air India and Akasa carry dogs and cats, in the cabin if the pet and carrier come to 10 kg or less. Air India also takes them as checked baggage up to 32 kg in a hard IATA crate. IndiGo doesn't carry pets. Whatever the airline, a vet's fitness certificate travels with the pet, because the rules tell the carrier to refuse him without one.