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I Checked 21 Airline Pet Fees. The Spread Is $100 to $300.

Round-trip in-cabin pet fees range from $100 on Allegiant and Air Transat to $300 on Delta, United, American, and JetBlue. Same pet and same cabin, but a 3x price gap depending on the airline.

··2 min read·Updated August 10, 2026
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Editor’s note (May 2026): This data essay was published before Spirit Airlines ceased operations on May 2, 2026 (Chapter 7 liquidation). Spirit’s pet fee below reflects its policy while it operated and is kept as a historical snapshot; Spirit is no longer bookable.

The same 15-pound dog in the same under-seat carrier costs $100 round-trip on one airline and $300 on another. Same dog, same cabin. The airline is the only thing that changed.

Most pet owners book by schedule and price, then meet the pet fee at checkout. In-cabin means the pet rides in a soft carrier under the seat in front of you, not down in cargo, and that service is identical whether you pay $100 or $300. It just swings 3x by carrier.

  1. Allegiant and Air Transat charge $50 one-way, so $100 round-trip for the under-seat carrier every airline makes you buy anyway. WestJet and Air Canada now start at the same $50, rising to roughly $60 on some routes. All of them come in well under half of what the big US carriers now charge.

  2. The middle tier clusters around $100-$125. Alaska charges $100, Southwest and Copa $125. Spirit charged $125 too, matching Southwest despite selling itself as the budget option. JetBlue used to sit here at $125 before it raised the in-cabin fee to $150 each way, and Delta made the same jump.

  3. Delta, American, United, and JetBlue all charge $150 one-way. That is $300 round-trip. All four of the largest US airlines now sit at the top of the range, so flying two pets on a family trip runs $600 in pet fees on one domestic round-trip, before a single seat or checked bag.

  4. Eight airlines charge under $100 one-way: Allegiant, Air Transat, Air Canada, Eurowings, Azul, WestJet, Breeze, and Sun Country. The cheapest six all cost $55 or less. Frontier raised its in-cabin pet fee to $149 in 2026, moving it out of this group.

The airline with the lowest base fare is not the cheapest airline to fly with a pet.

Related: carry-on size checker and best airline for flying with pets in cabin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which airline has the cheapest pet fee for in-cabin travel?
Allegiant Air and Air Transat charge $50 one-way ($100 round-trip) for an in-cabin pet, the lowest published fee across 21 airlines with pet policies in our dataset. WestJet and Air Canada now start at the same $50 one-way ($100 round-trip), each rising to roughly $60 on some routes.
How much do American and United charge to fly with a pet in cabin?
Both American Airlines and United Airlines charge $150 one-way, which is $300 round-trip for a single in-cabin pet, and Delta and JetBlue now match them at $150 each way. That is 3x more than the $100 round-trip fee at the cheapest carriers.
Do all airlines allow pets in the cabin?
No. Of 80 airlines tracked, only 21 publish in-cabin pet fees. Many international carriers, including most Asian and Middle Eastern airlines in our dataset, do not list in-cabin pet options at all.
C
Caden Sorenson

Travel data researcher and publisher

Caden Sorenson runs Travel Vient, an independent travel research site built on a verified database of airline baggage rules, airport connection times, cruise line policies, and eSIM plans. He built the verification pipeline behind it: each record is read from the company or government page that publishes it (connection times: OAG data via ExpertFlyer), stored with that source link and the sentence it came from, and re-checked on a schedule. He is a senior staff engineer with 15+ years building software, a Computer Science graduate of Utah State University, and based in Logan, Utah.

Figures link to the source they were read from and show the date last checked; some cite a travel publication or aggregator rather than the company.

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