Animal Incident Reporting Requirements (14 CFR Part 235)

Final Rule to Amend Requirement to Report Incidents Involving Animals

FINAL REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS

U.S. Department of Transportation

March 2014
1

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 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 then forwards them to the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture which enforces the Animal Welfare Act.

This Final Regulatory Impact Analysis (FRIA) is in support of the final rule to amend these reporting 

requirements. The original purpose of the 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 reporting carriers and hence provide consumers with more information to 

make this comparison. Table 1 below shows a comparison matrix between old requirements and new

changes.

The primary impact of the final rule is to expand the number of potential reportable incidents. It does 

so by including all dogs and cats (including those transported by non-owners/guardians), and by 

expanding the number of affected carriers. A lesser impact are the requirements 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 new requirements.
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Table 1 – Animal Reporting Rulemaking Matrix (major items)

REPORTING INCIDENTS

Previous Requirement New Requirement Impact

U.S. air carriers offering 

scheduled passenger service that 

account for ≥ 1% of domestic 

scheduled-service passenger 

revenues submit a report for any 

month in which they experience 

any incidents involving loss,

injury, or death of animal. If 

there are no incidents, they do 

not report.

Expand reporting to all incidents 

from 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 

incidents on flights that are 

operated with aircraft having 60 

or fewer seats.

Expands number of reportable 

incidents by including more 

passenger carriers. Current 

requirements only apply to 

carriers with about 90 percent of 

passenger revenues.

Definition of animal is a live 

warm/cold blooded animal being 

kept as a pet by a family 

household in the U.S.

Expand to include all cats and 

dogs transported in the cargo 

compartment in scheduled 

passenger air transportation.

Expands number of reportable 

incidents by including cats and 

dogs that are not household 

pets, e.g., shipped by breeders 

and handlers.

CALENDAR-YEAR REPORT

Previous Requirement New Requirement Impact

None Require covered carriers to 

provide in their December report 

a summary of the total number 

of animal losses, injuries and 

deaths for the year.

Each covered carrier will have to 

submit a report at the time of 

the December report even if 

they had no December incidents

(this information may be 

included in any report that the 

carrier may file for the loss, 

injury, or death of animals 

during the month of December). 

Slightly expands what carriers 

must include in the December 

report. Carriers will simply add 

up all animals incidents they 

reported throughout the year.

None Require covered carriers to 

report the total number of 

animals transported in the 

calendar year in the December 

reports.

Expands what carriers must 

include in the December report,

and carriers will need to tally all 

animals transported throughout 

the year.

None Require covered carriers to file a 

December report even if the 

carrier did not have any 

incidents involving the loss, 

injury, or death of an animal 

during that year.

Each covered carrier will have to 

submit a report at the time of 

the December report even if the 

carrier did not experience any 

incidents involving animals 

and/or carried no animals during 

that month or even that year.
3

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 their 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) 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 of the cargo hold of an airplane, the primary differences 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. 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) 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 a quarter to half of this total. Pets traveling as “accompanied 

baggage” make up to a quarter 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.

Baseline Number of Incidents

For 2012, the Aviation Consumer Protection Division reported 56 total incidents, comprising 29 deaths, 

26 injuries, and one loss. Table 2 below shows the annual number of incidents since 2008. 

 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/doc/en_document.php?numrec=3889003
4

Table 2 – Annual Number of Incidents of Animals from Air Transportation

Year Deaths Injuries Loss Total RPMs 

(billions)

Total 

Incidents 

P/RPMs

2008 30 10 3 43 806 .053

2009 23 6 3 32 763 .042

2010 39 13 5 57 792 .072

2011 35 9 2 46 809 .057

2012 29 26 1 56 818 .068

5-Year 

Average 

(rounded)

31 13 3 47 798 .058

Source: Reported incidents from Aviation Consumer Protection Division and RPMs from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics 

(BTS) for Revenue Passenger-miles by U.S. Carriers at all airports (http://www.transtats.bts.gov/Data_Elements.aspx?Data=3).

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

example, the variability of total incidents per billion Revenue Passenger Miles (RPM) tracks the year-toyear variations in the number of incidents. Consequently, these incidents are somewhat infrequent and 

random. To provide an idea about the number of carriers affected, in DOT’s monthly Air Travel 

Consumer Reports between 2008 and 2012, the total number of carriers that had incidents in a given 

year was nine in 2008-2009, ten in 2010, and six in 2011-2012. Previously, carriers only had to prepare a 

report for the month of December if they have incidents in that month. 

Survey of Pet Carriage Market

OIE reports that only 40 percent of the commercial air fleet has the appropriate environmental controls 

to carry animals in the hold.3

 In the United States, not all larger carriers accept animals in the cargo 

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

animals as cargo 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 as cargo on commercial passenger carriers generally do not fly on regional/commuter 

aircraft. As a rule, carriers generally do not accept live animals as cargo 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 aircraft with such cargo holds in such a manner. However, trade sources 

report that most new and larger RJs are adequately equipped. Larger turbo-props (e.g. Dash-8) might be 

adequately equipped but we could not verify the extent to which this is the cases. If a carrier has a mix 

of adequately and inadequately equipped RJs in its fleet, it will probably not transport animals as 

baggage/cargo on any of the routes served by RJs. For example, this is United’s policy regarding its 

Embraer RJ fleet (many which are adequately equipped). 

 3 http://www.oie.int/doc/en_document.php?numrec=3889003 4 http://www.wikihow.com/Minimize-Risk-to-a-Pet-in-the-Cargo-Area-of-an-Airplane
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The previous reporting rule required air carriers that have at least one percent of domestic scheduledservice passenger revenues (“1% carriers”) to report animal incidents. These carriers have over 90

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

largest program known as “Pet Safe.” 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 state “pets” 

generally or list individually covered species of animals, usually including birds but in many cases also 

including animals such as rabbits and hamsters. As can be seen from Table 3, several carriers (and 

correspondingly a significant portion of the passenger market) were effectively not subject to the old

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

cabin and do not take custody of the animal from the passenger.

Table 3 – Pet Transporting Practices for Reporting Air Carriers

Carrier Cabin Transport Accompanied 

Baggage 

Live Cargo 2012

Domestic 

Market Share 

 (%)

Air Tran √ 2.8

Alaska Air/Horizon √ √ √ 3.9

American √ √ √ 12.9

Delta √ √ (except on 767s) √ (except on 767s) 16.3

Frontier √ √ 1.7

Hawaiian √ (inter-island and 

flights leaving the 

island only)

 1.5

Jet Blue √ 5.0

SkyWest √ √ 2.3

Southwest √ 15.1

United √ √ √ 16.1

US Airways/America 

West

√ 8.1

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/carriers.asp?pn=1)

Table 3 does not list reporting carriers such as American Eagle, which is an affiliate of American Airlines,

and Virgin America, which only allows pets in the cabin. It also does not list carriers such as ExpressJet 

Airlines (Delta Connection/United Express) or Mesa5 (primarily United Express and US Airways Express)

that are code-sharing partners with major carriers. Together, these carriers account for roughly six

percent of the domestic market. All of these regional carriers (except Mesa) exclusively fly regional jets 

while Mesa flies regional jets and Dash-8 turboprops. It is uncertain what proportion of their fleets is 

adequately equipped to transport pets. We also could not verify pet transportation policies from their 

 5 Mesa voluntarily reports although it is not required to do so.
6

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 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 $250 each 

way.6

 Prices for transporting as accompanied baggage cabin are generally higher; for example within 

North America, United charges $250 each way.

7

 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.8 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 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 larger carriers charge. Trade 

sources indicate this is a small, but growing niche market. 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 final rule will not apply to all-cargo flights.

Effect of Rule Changes and Cost of Compliance- REPORTING INCIDENTS

The rule expands 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 by 

those carriers that are operated with aircraft having 60 or fewer seats. The old requirements applied to 

15 carriers with over 90 percent of the domestic market. Consequently, the expansion would 

theoretically not affect a great deal of new traffic. 

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 2012 Annual Report on Disability-Related Air Travel Complaints stated that 49 U.S. 

carriers submitted data for 2011.

9

 The ACAA reporting rule requires these carriers to file negative 

reports; i.e., if they had no complaints there are required to report “0.” Thus, the ACAA reporting rule 

covers up to 35 more firms than the animal incident reporting rule.

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

reporting rule because the animal incident reporting rule only requires monthly reporting if there is an 

 6 http://traveltips.usatoday.com/much-airline-ticket-dogs-62519.html 7

http://www.farecompare.com/travel-advice/flying-with-pets/ 8 In the case of United, it is actually a specialized pet transport service. 9 http://airconsumer.dot.gov/publications/2012Report/2011ComplaintSummaryUS.pdf
7

incident and it does not cover non-scheduled airlines. A review of carrier and other websites found that 

only 12 of the 35 carriers covered by the ACAA reporting rule are currently U.S carriers that account for 

at least 1 percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenue. The others are non-scheduled charter 

operators and other non-covered or non-operating carriers (e.g. lapsed certificate). Websites for two of 

these carriers, Spirit Airlines and Virgin America, report that they do not currently transport pets as 

accompanied baggage or live cargo. Two others (Allegiant and Sun Country) fly exclusively to vacation 

and resort type destinations. Both airlines do accept pets in the cabin (Sun Country also accepts pets as 

checked baggage); however, we think they would be unlikely to be transporting as many pets as cargo as 

other carriers since relocation is a primary purpose of this business. The eight other carriers fly 

connecting operations for major carriers (e.g. Delta Connection). One of these flies exclusively as US 

Airways Express so they would likely follow US Airways policy and not transport pets as cargo. Mesa 

Airlines flies as a regional carrier for Delta, US Airways Express, and United Express but pets are allowed 

on their flights.10 The six additional carriers affected by the amendments have fleets based entirely on 

regional jets and turboprop aircraft so there is some uncertainty about their current capacity for

transporting pets.

11 Carriers’ respective websites do not provide any independent information 

regarding policy on transporting pets as cargo. However, as with the larger reporting regional 

connectors, 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 passenger air transportation (and 

dogs and cats transported by breeders and handlers) may have more of an effect. Trade sources 

indicate that this category may be up to 1⁄2 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 increase from having up to 12 additional carriers report will be likely 

much less. The combined economic impact will be small. The average number of incidents since 2008 is 

47 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 additional 47 incidents will result in an increased burden of 47 hours. Based on 

average wage rate (including benefits) of $38.86 for a Paralegal working in Scheduled Air Transportation, 

the additional costs of reporting are about $1,826 per year.12

Most of these new incidents will be on carriers already subject to the reporting rule. Consequently, we 

do not expect that there will be many additional costs in establishing reporting procedures for carriers 

that had not been subject to the requirements. To the extent new carriers report, they already report 

disability-related passenger complaints to DOT so most procedures would already be in place. 

 10 http://www.paylessflights.com/en/airlines/Mesa-Airlines/118/ 11 The seven carriers are Colgan Air, Compass Air, Executive Airlines, GoJet, Mesaba, Pinnacle, and Shuttle America. 12 We estimate this rate by taking the applicable Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) hourly wage rate for the category 

($27.33). We then account for benefits by multiplying it by 1.422 (based on the December 2012 BLS Employer 

Costs for Employee Compensation). 
8

Effect of Rule Changes and Cost of Compliance- DECEMBER REPORT

The final rule also requires carriers to report in the December report a summary of the total number of 

animal losses, injuries, and deaths during the past calendar year. The only impact of this new 

requirement on covered carriers will be to add up all animal incidents that were reported throughout 

the year. Over the past several years, the number of carriers that submitted a report for December was 

between 6 and 10. This means that many reporting carriers currently submit a December report. An 

additional requirement is that all carriers must submit a report for December even if the carrier did not 

experience any incidents involving animals and/or carried no animals during that year. However, these 

requirements are not likely to constitute a significant burden. At a maximum, the 27 carriers subject to 

these requirements will need to submit a year-end report. We estimate this reporting burden at one 

hour per report. If a carrier had one or more animal incidents in a year, it will be required to submit a 

report totaling the number of incidents. We estimate that reporting burden will be a half-hour per 

report. In the worst-case scenario, the additional reporting burden will total no more than 40.5 hours 

(27 hours for each carrier to report either any or zero incidents in a given year plus 13.5 additional hours 

if every carrier had at least 1 incident in the calendar year). We estimate that the additional industry

reporting costs of these reports will be no more than $1,573.83 per year.13

The final rule also requires covered carriers to report the total number of animals transported in the 

calendar year in the December reports. This requirement is likely more substantial since it will require 

carriers to create and maintain a system that can record the number of animals it transports. We 

estimate that first year start-up costs for the computer hardware and software would be approximately 

$270,000 ($2012) for the entire industry based on an estimate from the 2007 Supporting Statement for 

the Disability Reporting Requirement.

14 Subsequent yearly costs for maintenance are expected to be 

minimal. One commenter estimated that it would cost about $40,000 for one large carrier to implement 

this recording system with annual maintenance costs of $9,500 per year. We expect that approximately 

27 firms would be responsible for recording the number of animals transported each year; however, not 

all these firms are large so costs would likely be much less.15 Even if we assumed that annual 

maintenance costs averaged $40,000 for the entire industry, the total cost of maintenance over 20 years 

discounted at 7% would be about $424,000.

16 Factoring in the initial $270,000 start-up cost brings the 

total cost of this requirement to about $694,000.

 13 Based off the same hourly wage rate for a paralegal as estimated above. 14 This rule required air carriers to record and report any disability-related complaint data to the Department. The 

supporting statement estimated that the first year start-up costs would range from $242,957 to $254,738 in 2007. 15 We expect that some firms may already have systems set up that can collect this data and will not incur large 

start-up costs as a result. Generally, firms with more flights will need larger databases; however, firms with less 

market share will likely not need to spend as much to comply with the requirements of this rule. 16 We use the formula for the present value of an ordinary annuity 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annuity_(finance_theory)). For a constant benefit stream over 20 years at a 7% 

discount rate, the discount factor is 10.594.
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Costs and Benefits (REPORTING INCIDENTS and DECEMBER REPORT)

Total Costs of the Rule:

• Reporting Incidents: 

o $1,826 per year

o $19,345 over 20 years at 7% discount rate

• December Report:

o Reporting Requirement: 

 $1,573 per year

 $16,664 over 20 years at 7% discount rate

o Database:

 $270,000 in start-up costs

 $40,000 in annual maintenance costs ($423,760 over 20 years at 7% discount 

rate)

 $693,760 over 20 years at 7% discount rate (start-up + maintenance)

• Total Cost: $729,769 over 20 years at 7% discount rate

• Annualized Cost: $68,885 at a 7% discount rate

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 old definition of pets may have excluded up 

to half of the dogs and cats that passenger carriers transport in the cargo compartment. 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. Additionally, 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 in 

excess of 800,000 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 of these. If the benefit of expanding 

reporting requirements to dogs and cats shipped to these individuals were as little as 34₵ per animal 

shipped ($68,885 ÷ 200,000), 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 
10

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); see 14 CFR 399.73. The final rule expands 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 incidents on flights 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 not significant 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 as defined for RFA purposes. We 

hereby certify that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small 

entities.