After Mickleham: getting your pet to the city you actually live in

Last verified: 2026-08-25

The answer

Your pet clears quarantine at Mickleham, outside Melbourne — every imported cat and dog does, whatever city you are moving to. So if home is Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin or anywhere else, there is one more journey after release, and it is yours to arrange.

This leg is a domestic flight. The federal import rules are finished by the time your pet walks out of Mickleham; what governs now is ordinary carrier policy, and the two big domestic carriers do not have the same one.

Qantas: the hold, booked through freight

Qantas states it plainly:

Animals and pets travelling on a Qantas flight travel in a special area in the hold of a passenger aircraft, where the temperature and noise are similar to those experienced in the cabin.

Only one category of animal goes in the cabin:

Service dogs can be carried in the passenger cabin of the aircraft with you.

The booking is not made as passenger baggage. It goes through Qantas Freight, which covers “our entire domestic network” — a different booking channel from the one you use for your own seat.

And the ordering matters:

It’s important to book your pet’s flight before you book your own, as there are restrictions around which flights pets and animals can travel on.

That is the same trap as the international leg: not every flight takes animals, so the animal’s itinerary is the constrained one. Build it first.

Virgin Australia: a limited in-cabin trial

This is genuinely new, and it is the reason “pets can never fly in the cabin in Australia” is no longer a safe thing to say. Virgin Australia runs a Pets in Cabin trial — a trial, not a network-wide service:

Adelaide has joined our Pets in Cabin trial, with flights departing from Melbourne and the Gold Coast from 23 June 2026.

The eligibility is narrow:

• small cats or dogs, combined weight of pet + carrier no more than 8kg;
• at least 8 weeks old;
• one pet per guest;
• booked more than 72 hours before travel;
• an introductory fee of AUD 149 per flight.

Melbourne is one of the trial’s departure points, which is exactly where your pet will be. But 8kg including the carrier is a small animal — a cat or a very small dog. Most dogs coming out of quarantine will not qualify, and for them Virgin points to the cargo hold instead.

Recheck this before you plan around it. A named trial on named routes is the most perishable kind of carrier policy there is: routes, price and eligibility can change, or the trial can end.

What this means for your planning

• Budget a separate journey. Quarantine release is not arrival home. The domestic leg has its own cost, its own booking, and its own crate handling.
• Do not assume in-cabin. Unless your animal is small enough for the Virgin trial and your route is one of the trial routes, plan for the hold.
• Book the animal’s flight first, on the carrier’s advice, not yours.
• Release timing is not fully in your hands. The minimum stay can be extended, so a domestic flight booked tightly against the expected release date is a booking you may lose. See quarantine release.

What this page does not tell you

• The Qantas Freight booking process, prices, crate models or embargoes. Those live on freight.qantas.com, which this site has not been able to read; take the crate model to the carrier directly.
• Virgin Australia’s cargo product — the carrier signposts it, but its terms were not read here.
• Any other domestic carrier. Regional and charter operators serving Darwin, Hobart and regional destinations have their own policies, none of which are recorded here.
• Road transport from Melbourne, which is a real option for some routes and is not a carrier question at all.
• Council registration fees at your destination. The registration, desexing and breed obligations themselves are covered in after-arrival state rules.