DOT to watch more closely how safely US airlines transport pets

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 463rd issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine, the magazine based on international travelers keeping each other informed.

In addition to the travel reports you’ll be reading from subscribers, all about adventures outside of the US, ITN brings you articles from columnists, travel-related advertising and travel-related news.

Here’s an item of possible interest to people concerned about animals. 

In July, in order to provide a more clear picture of how safely airlines are transporting pets, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) passed new rules requiring US airlines to change the ways they report on the loss, injury or death of any animals they transport.

The new rules, to be implemented on Jan. 1, 2015, will require domestic airlines to report, annually, the total number of animals they transported and the total numbers of injuries, losses or deaths of animals that occurred during transport.

Current rules cover any domestic airline that accounts for at least 1% of the revenue of scheduled domestic passenger traffic in the US, but because that formula caused some confusion, the rules are changing and will apply to any domestic airline with at least one aircraft that can hold at least 60 passengers. 

In regard to what is required to be reported, the new rules also expand the definition of “animal” from “any warm- or cold-blooded animal which, at the time of transportation, is being kept as a pet in a family household in the United States” to this: “any warm- or cold-blooded animal which, at the time of transportation, is being kept as a pet in a family household in the United States and any dog or cat which, at the time of transportation, is shipped as part of a commercial shipment on a scheduled passenger flight, including shipments by trainers and breeders.”

The DOT posts a monthly newsletter that includes airline “incident” reports involving pets. Details are given along with the results of investigations into the causes, and PDFs can be downloaded. At the webpage www.dot.gov/airconsumer, click on “How Can We Help You?,” then on “Air Travel Consumer Reports,” then on any report listed.

At the top of the webpage that comes up, look for a year and month followed by “ATCR.pdf” and click on that link to bring up airline incident reports of all types, including flight delays, baggage mishandling, customer complaints and (near the end) incidents involving pets. 

Only US carriers have to report incidents involving animals, so DOT statistics do not account for every animal flying to or from airports in the US.

In an August 2013 report from the air-industry magazine Air Cargo World, it was determined that fewer than 0.01% of pets flying on US carriers suffered an in-flight incident in 2011 and 2012, most of the problems being due to preexisting conditions of those animals. During that period, death was the most common “incident,” followed by injury and then loss. 

A guide to taking or sending your pet on a flight is published by the Association for Airline Passenger Rights, a nonprofit consumer organization, in partnership with Trips With Pets, which offers products and advice for traveling with pets. 

The guide includes relevant regulations, lists domestic airline pet-transport fees and provides tips. It can be found here. Among the tips are the following:

• Familiarize yourself with the airline’s policies on pets, such as whether or not pets are allowed in the cabin; specifications on pet carriers, and any health or immunization requirements.

• Do not administer tranquilizers to your pet unless a veterinarian has prescribed them. 

Another online resource of tips for traveling with pets is PetsWelcome, which lists regulations on transporting pets with most domestic airlines and some international ones. 

PetsWelcome also offers general travel tips and even a list of international lodgings that accept pets.

Have dog. Will travel. But where to go?

On May 20, TripAdvisor released its second annual World Cities Survey. The survey, which was answered by more than 54,000 people, was sent to users of the travel website who, in 2013, had written a review on either a hotel, restaurant or attraction in any of the featured cities. 

Travelers ranked the cities in 16 categories. For a country to be counted in the survey, at least 300 surveys on it needed to be completed. In each category, scores were averaged to come up with the results, which were presented simply as rankings, without backing figures. 

Tokyo ranked highest in the most categories, including helpfulness of locals, taxi services, cleanest streets, public transport and overall experience. That city ranked second highest in friendliness of taxi drivers and comfort traveling alone and third highest in its restaurants and nightlife.

Also scoring at the top — Rome for attractions and culture, Dubai for shopping and hotels, New York City for restaurants and nightlife, Dubrovnik for friendliness of taxi drivers, Vienna in ease of getting around the city, Budapest in value for money spent and Singapore for comfort traveling alone. Singapore took second place in taxi services, cleanest streets and ease of getting around and third place for friendliest taxi drivers.

Bangkok, the most visited city in 2013 (July ’14, pg. 2), scored third place for hotels. London, the most visited city in Europe in 2013, was ranked second in shopping and third in nightlife.

The highest Paris ranked in any categories was third place, for attractions and culture. Berlin earned third place for clean streets, ease of getting around and public transportation. 

The survey also named the cities ranking lowest in each category. 

Moscow had the lowest average scores in regard to helpfulness of its locals, friendliness of taxi drivers, taxi service, value for money, and hotels. It ranked second worst in shopping and restaurants and third worst in overall experience. 

Mumbai scored lowest for cleanliness of streets, ease of getting around and overall experience. 

Marrakech ranked lowest in public transportation and nightlife, second worst for clean streets and third worst for helpfulness of locals, ease of getting around, comfort traveling alone and restaurants. 

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, ranked worst in comfort traveling alone, shopping, restaurants and attractions, also ranking second worst in ease of getting around, culture, nightlife and overall experience. 

The lowest-scoring city in regard to culture was Sharm el-Sheikh in eastern Egypt. It also ranked second worst in attractions and comfort traveling alone.

Beijing came in second worst for helpfulness of locals, friendly taxi drivers and taxi service. 

The only other cities to rank among the lowest in more than one category were Rio de Janeiro, second worst in hotels and value for money (though the World Cup likely raised prices, which may drop in 2015) and third in shopping, and Hanoi, second worst for public transport and third worst for nightlife. 

For more information on the latest World Cities Survey, visit http://blog.tripadvisor.com/blog/2014/05 and click on the May 20 and May 21 articles. 

TripAdvisor’s content is user-created and includes personal travel experiences and ratings of companies and destinations. One person’s trip may differ greatly from another’s based on the types of trips they were and the travelers’ expectations.

While TripAdvisor is the largest trip-review website and perhaps the easiest to use, here are a few more websites that offer users’ reviews and ratings on travel destinations, establishments and entertainment: GeckoGo, VirtualTourist and Zoover.

In our June 2014 issue, we printed Emily Moore’s account of flying into Miami International Airport from Panama City and almost missing her connecting flight out because the line of hundreds of people waiting to clear Customs was moving so slowly.

ITN followed Ms. Moore’s letter with a response from Miami International. Department director Emilio T. Gonzalez wrote, among other things, “On March 24, I traveled to Washington, DC, and had productive meetings with lawmakers and senior staff at the Department of Homeland Security and CBP regarding the pressing need to allocate the additional CBP officers that our booming international gateway needs.”

After reading the letters, Kent Shamblin of Beaver Bay, Minnesota, wrote to ITN to say, “The reply of the director of the Miami-Dade Aviation Department to (Ms. Moore’s) complaint was the best response of any public facility I’ve read in ITN. What the director described doing to secure better Customs staffing was outstanding. 

“Other airports — as well as tour companies, hotels and airlines — could take major lessons from his effort to serve his customers.”

When I read Mr. Gonzalez’s reply, I, too, thought it was the best reply to a letter of complaint about a company or agency that I’d ever read — and I’ve been soliciting these formal responses at ITN since 1976!

After reading my column last month, in which I pointed out two misspelled names in the previous issue, longtime subscriber Irving Dayton of Corvallis, Oregon, continued to the next page, then wrote, “On page 69, the item ‘West Bank Kidnappings’ contains a reference to ‘a duel American-Israeli citizen.’ Admittedly, Americans and Israelis do not always see eye to eye, but ‘dual citizen’ might make more sense.”

Thanks, Irving. 

We do appreciate receiving notices of errors (even if they are not as clever as Irving’s note) because, at the least, we can make the correction to the item posted on our website, which is open to a wider audience.

Hildy Mignone of San Diego, California, wrote, “I never did find out who originally sent my name in so I’d get a sample copy of ITN, but I’ll do my part by securing a gift subscription for someone or simply getting people interested. 

“There are so many ways to get information today. ITN has a lovely website, though I still prefer a ‘news’ paper. When those of us who love travel see the magazine arrive in the mailbox, everything goes by the wayside. I read all the ads and take to heart what readers have to say about their experiences. I keep copies of ITN around for future reference, so advertisers’ dollars are well spent.”

Hildy is on to something in reading the ads in ITN. Many tour operators and other travel purveyors who advertise here advertise nowhere else. Not only are they economically savvy, they’re reaching the perfect audience: people who love to travel and who do so frequently outside of the US.

When you contact a company or anyone whose display ad or classified ad you saw in ITN, let them know where you learned about them. The feedback is important. And if you contact an outfit recommended in a subscriber’s letter or article, drop a hint that they might benefit from additional exposure in ITN.

Whether you write in, spread the word or just continue to subscribe, know that ITN is thriving because of travelers like you. Enjoy the magazine. You’ve earned it.    — DT