How early should you order a pet travel crate before your flight?

The tidy answer is: as soon as your travel plans firm up. The useful answer is a timeline, because the crate is only one moving part in a pet move, and the order you do things in matters more than people expect.

The realistic timeline

As soon as flights are likely: measure your pet and get a quote.** You do not need a booked flight to get a price. Send the four measurements and we will confirm the crate size, the cost and the build time. If the flight date then moves, the quote does not change; the crate is sized to your pet, not the calendar.

Once the flight is booked: confirm the order.** Tell us the airline and route, and we build to their requirements as well as IATA’s. If you are tight on time, tell us the date first and we will be straight with you about whether we can meet it. No crate has any business being the reason a flight slips.

At least a couple of weeks before travel: have the crate at home.** This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters most for your pet.

Why early delivery is the whole game

A crate that arrives the day before the flight is a strange box. A crate that has been in the kitchen for two weeks is furniture. The single best thing you can do to reduce your pet’s stress on travel day costs nothing:

• Leave the door open at home and let them explore it in their own time
• Feed them in it
• Put a familiar blanket or a worn t-shirt inside so it smells like home
• Never use it as punishment; the crate should only ever mean good things

By the time it is loaded, the crate is the one familiar thing in an unfamiliar day. Airlines and vets say the same because it is true.

What can compress the timeline

Bespoke builds take time in a workshop with a queue, and larger crates take longer than small ones. Peak relocation season, oversize builds and unusual specs all add days. We confirm an honest build time with every quote rather than promising a fixed number here that will not always hold, and if a genuine emergency lands, ring us and we will tell you what is actually possible.

The short version

Measure early, order once the flight is booked, and get the crate into your home well before it goes to the airport. Your pet does the flight either way; the timeline decides whether they do it in a strange box or a familiar one.

Get a quote with your measurements, or see how ordering works.