Private and chartered flights: the one way a pet flies in the cabin

Last verified: 2026-08-25

The answer

Everywhere else on this site says your pet flies to Australia as manifest cargo and cannot travel in the cabin. On a commercial flight that is correct. On a private or chartered flight the department says something different:

Live cats and dogs can travel to Australia on a private or chartered flight. They must meet all import conditions.

Your cat or dog can travel to Australia in the cabin of a private or chartered flight. They do not usually travel as manifested cargo.

So the cabin is possible. What it is not is a way around anything: every import condition still applies, and the charter route adds four more of its own.

It does not make the import easier

Read the department’s second paragraph carefully, because it points the other way:

Travelling in the cabin may present additional biosecurity risks. Because of this, your pet may need to meet additional or different import conditions.

These conditions will be listed on your import permit.

The microchip, the rabies vaccination, the RNATT, the 180-day wait, the import permit and quarantine at the post-entry facility are unchanged. Chartering an aircraft buys you a different journey, not a shorter pathway — and it may buy you extra conditions, which will appear on your permit rather than on any website.

The crate requirement also survives: an animal arriving this way must still be in a container meeting IATA guidelines.

The four things the charter route adds

1. A notice of intent, at least three business days before departure

You must email a Notice of Intent to import your cat or dog before your private or chartered flight departs. … We must receive this at least 3 business days before your departure date from the country of export.

The form comes attached to your import permit. Business days, not calendar days — a departure early in the week means sending it the week before.

2. Written approval before the animal travels

You cannot send your cat or dog to Australia until you receive our written approval.

This is the condition that catches people who treat a charter as a private arrangement. The department assesses the documents and approves the travel before departure. Flying without that approval is not a paperwork problem to sort out on arrival.

3. A Victorian first-point-of-entry airport, and approved handling

Private or chartered flights with live cats and dogs from Group 2 or 3 countries must land at a first point of entry (FPoE) airport in Victoria, Australia.

When the flight arrives, all cats and dogs must be handled by a biosecurity import participant with a class 1.2 approved arrangement.

The United States, Great Britain and Canada are all Group 3, so this applies to every corridor this site covers. Note what it does not say: it does not name Melbourne International Airport, it names a category of Victorian airport. And the handler is not you — it is a party holding a specific approval, which has to be arranged in advance.

4. Everyone on board shares the longest quarantine

This is the one that surprises people chartering with more than one animal:

If cats and dogs travel together, they may all need to complete the longest quarantine period required for any cat or dog on the flight. … Any extra time spent in quarantine will be at your expense.

One animal on the flight without a valid identity check can pull every other animal from a 10-day minimum to a 30-day one. If you are sharing a charter, the other passengers’ paperwork is now your financial problem.

Who this is actually for

Honestly: very few readers. Chartering an aircraft across the Pacific or from Europe costs multiples of the entire commercial pathway, including quarantine. This page exists because the option is real and documented, not because it is a sensible default.

It is worth understanding in three situations — an animal a commercial carrier will not accept, a group of animals moving together where the charter economics change, or a move where someone is already flying privately. In all three, start with the department and your permit conditions, because the extra conditions are written there and nowhere else.

What this page does not tell you

• Which Victorian airports are first points of entry, or which handlers hold a class 1.2 approved arrangement. Both are lists the department maintains.
• What the additional in-cabin import conditions are. They are set per permit and are not published in advance.
• What a charter costs, or who operates them.
• Whether quarantine differs for an animal arriving this way beyond the shared-flight rule above — the minimum periods and the facility are unchanged.
• Anything about assistance animals, which may follow a different pathway.