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Animal Incident Reporting Requirements (14 CFR Part 235) Ll ;: .. \ 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to Amend Rules Requiring Reporting of Incidents 

PRELIMINARY REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS 

U.S. Department of Transportation 

February 2012 
Introduction 

In 2003 and 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) adopted rules requiring airlines to 

report on the loss, injury, or death of animals in air transport. These rules implemented requirements of 

the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (P.L. 106-81). DOT 

implemented these requirements through regulations found in 14 CFR Section 234.13. These 

requirements obligate U.S. airlines offering scheduled passenger service to file reports with DOT 

regarding incidents involving the loss, injury, or death of animals during air transportation. DOT, 

through the Aviation Consumer Protection Division, publishes these reports monthly and forwards them 

to the U.S. Department of Agriculture which enforces the Animal Welfare Act. 

This Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis (PRIA) is in support of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

(NPRM) to amend these reporting requirements. The original purpose ofthe Act was to give consumers 

information on the relative safety of airlines that transport household pets. The purpose of these 

amendments is to expand the universe of reportable incidents and hence provide consumers with more 

information to make this comparison. Table 1 below shows a comparison matrix between current 

requirements and proposed changes. 

Table 1-Animal Reporting Rule making Matrix (major items) 

Current Requirement Proposed Chan&e Impact 

U.S. air carriers offering Expands reporting to all U.S. air Expands number of potential 

scheduled passenger service carriers that operate scheduled incidents by including more 

(only carriers with :;:: 1% of passenger service with at least passenger carriers. Current 

domestic scheduled-service one aircraft with a designed requirements only apply to 

passenger revenues) submit a seating capacity of more than 60 carriers with about 90 percent of 

report for any month in which seats, including flights by those passenger revenues. All covered 

they experienced any incidents carriers that are operated with carriers will have to submit a 

involving loss, injury, or death of aircraft having 60 or fewer seats. recap of total incidents and total 

animals. If there are no Also, all covered carriers must animals transported in the 

incidents, they do not report. report with their December December report; this is a new 

reports the totals for the number requirement. 

of animal incidents by category 

(loss, injury, death) and the total 

number of animals transported 

in the calendar year 

Definition of animal is a live Expanded to include all cats and Expands number of reportable 

warm/cold blooded animal being dogs transported as cargo in incidents by including 

kept as a pet by a fam ily scheduled passenger air transported cats and dogs that 

household in the U.S. transportation. are not household pets. 

Includes animals in custody of air Expanded to apply to dogs and Expands number of incidents (as 

carrier from check-in of animal cats transported by other above) to include dogs and cats 

prior to departure until airline individuals (not owners or transported by a breeder or 

returns animal to owner or guardians) such as breeders and handler. 

guardian. handlers. 

1 
The primary impact of the proposed amendments is to expand the number of potential reportable 

incidents. It does so by including all dogs and cats (including those transported by nonowners/guardians), and by expanding the number of affected carriers. A lesser impact is a requirement 

that all covered carriers state in their December reports the total number of animals that were lost, 

injured, or died during air transport and the total number of animals transported in the calendar year. 

The next sections will describe current baseline information, then the economic effect of the proposed 

amendments. 

Baseline Number of Animals Transported 

There are three categories for transporting pets by air. Airlines allow a limited number of passengers 

per flight to transport small pets in the cabin ("unassigned in the cabin"). These animals remain in a 

kennel with the passenger for the duration of the flight. Cats, smaller dogs, household birds and other 

small pets (depends on airline) fit this category. Except for service animals used by passengers with 

disabilities, airlines tend to prohibit larger animals (usually larger dogs, with the exception of service 

dogs used by passengers with disabilities) from flying in the cabin. Airlines also allow passengers to 

check their pets as baggage ("accompanied baggage") or to ship animals as a "live cargo shipment" in 

the cargo compartment. Live cargo transport is usually without an accompanying human on the flight. 

While "live cargo" and "accompanied baggage" can be different areas ofthe cargo hold of an airplane, 

the primary difference between these two categories are shipping procedures and price points. 

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) 1 reports that all live animals make up less than 0.1 

percent of the value of air cargo. 2 This is not a large trade. By number of animals, USDOT's Aviation 

Consumer Protection Division reports on its website that U.S. air carriers transport 2 million animals 

each year. However, there is some uncertainty with respect to this figure and it may be considerably 

higher than the actual number. Good data are not immediately available as to the total number of 

animals that air carriers currently transport. Neither trade associations for animal transportation 

providers (viz., the International Pet and Animal Transportation Association and the Animal 

Transportation Association) or for aviation (viz., Airlines for America, formerly known as the Air 

Transport Association) collect data on the number of animals transported annually by air. 

DOT also contacted trade (e.g. pet transportation firms) and industry (airlines) sources. They estimate 

the actual number of pets that carriers transport annually at up to 800,000. Pets travelling in the cabin 

as "unassigned" make up anywhere from Y. to Yz of this total. Pets traveling as "accompanied baggage" 

account for up to a Y. of the total. Up to half of the total is from unaccompanied live cargo shipments. 

Up to half of the unaccompanied live cargo shipments are dogs and cats that breeders and handlers 

transport (e.g. to a new owner or to a dog show). Relocation is a primary reason that owners transport 

their pets, this is especially so for those who do not travel in the cabin. 

1 This organization, originally known as the Office International des Epizooties, was founded in 1924 and changed 

its name in 2003 to the World Organization for Animal Health, but kept its original acronym. 2 http://www.oie.int/fileadmin/Home/eng/Animal Welfare/docs/pdf/Others/lATA/ENG lATA paper 2009.pdf 

2 
Baseline Number of Incidents 

In 2010, the Aviation Consumer Protection Division published reports 57 total incidents, comprising 39 

deaths, 13 injuries, and 5 losses. The total number was somewhat high by historical standards. Table 2 

below shows the annual number of incidents since 2006. 

As can be seen, the annual totals vary quite a lot. This variance is not a function of total air travel. For 

example, there is also a great deal of variability of total incidents per billion Revenue Passenger Miles 

(RPM). Consequently, these incidents are somewhat infrequent and random. 

Table 2- Annual Number of Animal Incidents in Air Transportation 

Year Deaths Injuries Loss Total RPMs Total 

(billions) Incidents 

P/RPMs 

2006 25 12 12 49 797 .061 

2007 30 9 12 51 829 .062 

2008 30 10 3 43 812 .053 

2009 23 6 3 32 770 .042 

2010 39 13 5 57 787 .072 

5-Year 29 10 7 46 799 .058 

Average 

(rounded) 

Source: Reported incidents from Aviation Consumer Protection Division and RPMs from 2011 Statistical 

Abstract of the United States. 

Survey of Pet Carriage Market 

OlE reports that only 40 percent of the commercial air fleet worldwide has the appropriate 

environmental controls to carry animals in the hold. 3 In the U.S., not all larger carriers accept animals in 

the cargo compartment (either accompanied baggage or as live cargo shipment). Carriers that do not 

accept animals in the cargo compartment do so for their own business reasons. This includes the size of 

the market and the cost involved with adequately equipping cargo holds for the transportation of 

animals. 

Animals traveling in the cargo compartment on commercial passenger carriers generally do not fly on 

regional/commuter aircraft. As a rule, carriers generally do not accept live animals in the cargo 

compartment on aircraft not equipped with pressurized, temperature-controlled cargo compartments. 

The cargo area of a small regional jet (RJ) or turboprop aircraft might not be a controlled environment. 

4 

Carriers using smaller aircraft can choose whether or not to equip their cargo holds in such a manner. 

3 /bid. 

4 http://www.wikihow.com/Minimize-Risk-to-a-Pet-in-the-Cargo-Area-of-an-Airplane 

3 
However, trade sources report that most new and larger RJ's are adequately equipped. Larger turboprops (e.g. Dash-8) might be adequately equipped but we could not verify the extent to which this is the 

case. If a carrier has a mix of adequately and inadequately equipped RJ's in its fleet, it will probably not 

transport animals as baggage/cargo on any of the routes served by RJ's. For example, this is 

Continental's policy regarding its Embraer RJ fleet (many of which are adequately equipped). 

The rule currently requires air carriers that account for at least one percent of domestic scheduledservice passenger revenues ("1% carriers") to report animal incidents. These carriers have about 90 

percent of the domestic market (by Revenue Passenger Miles). Continental has the best known and 

possibly largest program, known as "Pet Safe"; together with American and Delta they account for over 

half of all pets transported by U.S. carriers. Table 3 below shows a listing of most reporting carriers and 

their policy on transporting pets. While not exhaustive, it does serve to demonstrate current business 

practices. Most of these carriers do not limit themselves to dogs and cats, and either list "pets" 

generally or a menagerie of individually covered species of pets, usually including birds but in many 

cases also including pets such as rabbits and hamsters. As can be seen from Table 3, several carriers 

(and correspondingly a significant portion of the passenger market) are effectively not subject to current 

requirements (and would not be subject to the proposed requirements) because they only accept pets 

in the cabin. 

Table 3- Pet Transporting Practices for Reporting Air Carriers 

Carrier Cabin Transport Accompanied Uveearao 2010 

~ DomestJc 

Market Share . 

-'"l 

Air Tran " 3.4 

Alaska Air /Horizon " " v 3.3 

American " " 13.6 

Continental " " 7.3 

Delta " " " 16.6 

Frontier " " 1.5 

Hawaiian v (inter-island 1.4 

flights only) 

Jet Blue " 4.4 

SkyWest " 2.1 

Southwest " 14.1 

United " " " 10.2 

US Airways/ America " 7.8 

West 

Source: www.petfriendlytravel.com/airtravel and individual airline websites. Bureau of Transportation 

Statistics (BTS) for market share based on RPMs (http://www.transtats.bts.gov/) 

Table 3 does not list reporting carriers such as Comair (Delta Connection) or American Eagle who are 

corporate affiliates of Delta and American, respectively. It also does not list reporting carriers Atlantic 

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Southeast Airlines (Delta Connection/United Express) and Mesa (primarily United Express and US 

Airways Express) that are code-sharing partners with major carriers. Together, these carriers account 

for nearly four percent of the domestic market. All of these carriers (except Mesa) exclusively fly 

regional jets while Mesa flies regional jets and Dash-8 turboprops. It is uncertain how much of their 

fleets are adequately equipped tp transport pets. We could also not verify pet transportation policies 

from their websites. However, industry sources indicate equipage is high [??] and that they can 

transport pets on many of the routes that these carriers serve. 

Prices for transporting pets vary depending by airline. An August 26, 2009, article in USA TODAY 

reported that prices for transporting pets "unassigned" in the cabin as a carry-on vary between $75 and 

$150 each way. 5 Prices for transporting pets as accompanied baggage are generally higher; for example 

within North America United charges $250 each way. 6 Unaccompanied pets travel as live cargo. The 

main difference between the latter two is that with live cargo the animal travels through the airline 

cargo system and they are dropped off and picked up at the cargo facility. 7 Fees vary based on weight, 

size, and destination and are usually much higher than for accompanied baggage. 

There are also "niche" carriers that do not offer scheduled passenger service that are currently not 

subject to the reporting requirements. These are Part 135 charter carriers that allow accompanied pets 

to travel in the cabin (usually non-kenneled). The fees for these carriers are more than scheduled 

carriers charge. Trade sources indicate this is a small, but growing niche market. There is also a new 

service, Pet Airways, th?t is a pet-only carrier where pets travel in the main cabin. Fares on this carrier 

start at $149 each way. 8 Trade sources indicate that all-cargo carriers are not in the business of 

transporting household pets. For example, websites for large integrated shippers such as UPS, DHL, and 

FedEx report that they do not ship dogs, cats, or other household pets. The current DOT reporting 

requirements also do not apply to all-cargo flights. 

Effect of Rule Changes and Cost of Compliance 

The rule will expand reporting requirements to all U.S. air carriers that operate scheduled passenger 

service with at least one aircraft with a designed seating capacity of more than 60 seats, including flights 

of those carriers that are operated with aircraft having 60 or fewer seats. The current requirements 

already apply to 15 carriers with about 90 percent of the domestic market. Consequently, the expansion 

would theoretically not affect a great deal of new traffic. 

5 http:(fwww.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/mcgee/2009-08-26-flying-with-pets N.htm 

6 http://www.united.com/page/article/1,,53410,00.html 

7 In the case of Continental, it is actually a specialized pet transport service. 

8 http://petairways.com/content/pet-airline-comparison 

5 
The scope of this rule is illuminated by a DOT rule requiring air carriers to report annually to the 

Department on the number of disability-related consumer complaints that those airlines receive. This is 

an Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) reporting rule. With respect to U.S. air carriers, this disability complaint 

reporting requirement applies to certificated U.S. air carriers conducting passenger operations (both 

scheduled and non-scheduled) with at least one aircraft having a designed seating capacity of more than 

60 passengers. The 2010 Annual Report on Disability-Related Air Travel Complaints reported that 51 U.S. 

carriers submitted data for 2009.9 The rule requires these carriers to file negative reports; i.e., if they 

had no complaints they were required to report "0." Thus, this ACAA reporting rule covers up to 35 

more firms than the current animal incident reporting rule. 

However, the scope of the animal incident reporting rule will be substantially less than the ACAA 

reporting rule because the former only requires monthly reporting if there is an incident and it does not 

cover non-scheduled airlines. A review of carrier and other websites found that only 14 of these 35 

carriers covered by the ACAA reporting rule are currently operating scheduled carriers. The others are 

non-scheduled charter operators and other non-covered or non-operating carriers (e.g. lapsed 

certificate). Websites for two ofthe 14 carriers, Spirit and Virgin America, report that they do not 

currently transport pets as accompanied baggage or live cargo. Three others (Allegiant, Sun Country, 

and USA 3000) fly exclusively to vacation and resort type destinations. While we could not confirm their 

pet transportation policy, they'd be unlikely to be transporting as many pets in the cargo compartment 

as other carriers since relocation is a primary purpose of this business. The nine other carriers fly feeder 

operations for major carriers (e.g. Delta Connection). Two of these fly exclusively as US Airways Express 

so they would likely follow US Airways policy and not transport pets .as cargo. The seven additional 

carriers affected by the amendments have fleets composed entirely of regional jets and turboprop 

aircraft so there is some uncertainty about their current capacity for transporting pets. 10 The carriers' 

respective websites do not provide any independent information regarding policy on transporting pets 

in the cargo compartment. However, as with the larger reporting regional feeder carriers, we would 

expect that most of them can transport pets on many of the routes they serve. 

Expanding the requirement to include all dogs and cats transported in the cargo compartment in 

passenger air transportation (including dogs and cats transported by breeders and handlers) may have 

more of an effect. Trade sources indicate that this category may be up to% of all the dogs, cats, and 

other household pets that scheduled passenger carriers currently transport as live cargo and one third 

of all pets transported in the cargo hold (i.e. not in the cabin). The impact from having up to 10 

additional carriers report will be likely much less. The combined economic impact will be small. The 

average number of incidents since 2006 is 46 per year. For Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) burden 

reporting purposes, DOT had previously estimated this reporting burden at one hour per filing. Even if 

we doubled the number of reportable annual incidents, an additional46 incidents will result in an 

9 http:// a i rconsu mer .ost. dot .gov /pub I ications/ G atewayl-2009. htm 

10 The seven carriers are Colgan Air, Compass Air, Executive Airlines, GoJet, Mesaba, Pinnacle, and Shuttle America. 

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increased burden of 46 hours. Based on average wage rate (including benefits) of $33.46 for a Paralegal 

working in Scheduled Air Transportation, the additional costs of reporting are about $1,540 per year. 11 

Most of these new incidents will be on carriers already subject to the requirements. Costs for carriers 

that will be subject to this reporting requirement for the first time should not be substantial. Most of 

the current reporting carriers do not have to report each month because they do not have a reportable 

incident each month. Negative reports under the new rule will be required only for the recap in the 

December reports, so most of the smaller carriers that will be reporting for the first time presumably 

will not need to report during most months. The recap in the December reports will entail minimal 

burden as it is merely an arithmetical total of the values in any reports that a carrier filed throughout the 

reporting year and the number of animals that the carrier transported in the reporting year. 

The benefits of the rule are that it will provide consumers with a fuller picture of the safety record of 

airlines in transporting pets, in particular dogs and cats. The current definition of pets may exclude up 

to half of the dogs and cats that passenger carriers transport as cargo. By including incidents involving 

dogs and cats transported by breeders and handlers in the reporting requirements, this will no longer be 

the case. Expanding the rule to smaller carriers will help to close a data gap while not affecting carriers 

classified as small entities by the Department (see the Regulatory Flexibility Analysis below). Requiring 

negative reporting in the recap in the December report over a signature and certification of an official of 

that airline provides an additional incentive for complete and accurate reporting by carriers. And since 

the Department shares these reports with the U.S. Department of Agriculture which enforces the Animal 

Welfare Act, all of these measures should produce an opportunity for more comprehensive 

enforcement of that statute, with resulting benefits for pets and their owners. 

While we cannot put a monetary value on the benefit of improved information on risks to animals being 

transported on various airlines, we would note that our estimates above indicate that there are 

between 800,000 and 2 million animals transported each year by U.S. airlines. Dogs and cats 

transported by breeders and handlers may make up between 200,000 and 500,000 ofthese. lfthe 

benefit of expanding reporting requirements to dogs and cats shipped by these entities were as little as· 

eight-tenths of a cent per animal shipped, the benefits of the rule would exceed the costs. 

REGULATORY FLEXIBILITY ANALYSIS 

As directed by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended by the Small Business Regulatory 

Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (SBREFA), as well as Executive Order 13272, the Department is 

required to consider the potential impact of its regulations on small entities, including small businesses, 

small nonprofit organizations and small governmental jurisdictions. A direct air carrier is a small 

business if it provides air transportation only with small aircraft (up to 60 seats capacity/18,000 pounds 

payload capacity). The rule amendments will expand reporting requirements to all U.S. air carriers that 

11 We estimate this rate by taking the applicable Bureau of labor Statistics (BLS) hourly wage rate for the category 

($23.68). We then account for benefits by multiplying it by 1.413 (based on the December 2010 BLS Employer 

Costs for Employee Compensation). 

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operate scheduled passenger service with at least one aircraft with a designed seating capacity of more 

than 60 seats, including those that are operated with aircraft having 60 or fewer seats. By definition (no 

aircraft with a capacity more than 60 seats) carriers that are small business will not be subject to the 

rule amendments. 

Even for somewhat larger carriers, the provisions of the new requirements will not impose significant 

costs on airlines. The total costs are insignificant and we expect they will primarily apply to carriers who 

already are subject to the requirements. These carriers all have at least one percent of domestic 

scheduled-service passenger revenues and all have fleets with larger aircraft. None of these carriers are 

small companies. 

Consequently, the rule will not have any impact on small carriers. I hereby certify that proposed rule 

will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 

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