Lufthansa's Animal Lounge offers luxury travel to pets

Lufthansa Airlines offers pets and live animals the world’s ultimate in luxury travel with a dedicated Animal Lounge. Echoing the luxury of first class travel, the Animal Lounge offers state-of-the-art care, handling, feeding and shelter facilities as well as veterinary expertise ensuring all animal ‘passengers’, ranging from polar bears to tropical fish, reach their final destination safe, happy and on-time.

Located at Lufthansa’s main hub, Frankfurt am Main Airport, the Animal Lounge is the world’s most modern animal airport facility and spans approximately 4,000 square meters.

Commenting on the Animal Lounge Kai Peters, General Manager Lufthansa Australia said: “At Lufthansa we believe it is very important to try and minimise the trauma and anxiety that many pets and live animals experience while travelling. Our Animal Lounge provides individual care, professional expertise and an environment designed to ensure ultimate comfort for the 14,000 household pets and 1,500 horses and wild animals that pass through the Animal Lounge annually.”

Unlike most airports’ live animal facilities which are spread out over several terminals, the Animal Lounge is located in a single specialist facility building with distinct zones for export, import, transit, quarantine and health inspections ensuring that all animals transiting through Frankfurt have no chance of getting lost and are healthy enough to continue their journey.

All pets, including dogs and cats transported in the passenger cabin, are transferred to the Animal Lounge if a transfer or layover exceeds more than two to three hours. At the lounge there are thirty nine ‘small animal boxes’ that are climate-controlled and provide enough room for the animals to stretch their legs. Other live animals are transported in the climate-controlled and pressurised cargo hold.

Commenting further Kai Peters said: “The Animal Lounge facility came in particularly handy in October 2008, on a flight from Dubai to Frankfurt, when a passenger carried a pregnant dog onto the plane. About thirty minutes before the plane landed, the dog started giving birth to several puppies! A veterinarian from the Animal Lounge was called to the aircraft upon landing and the little puppies were safely delivered.”

Lufthansa accommodates pets worldwide on their passenger planes as well as through their cargo division, Lufthansa Cargo.

Currently, Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian Airlines operate flights via 12 getaways from five origins in Australia. Within Europe, the Group’s airlines fly to over 150 destinations, offering pet owners from Australia the most extended network of all airlines.

For more information about travelling with a pet please visit: www.lufthansa-cargo.info/animallounge/en/ or please contact your country’s Lufthansa Reservations Office.