Hoe groot is de kans dat een huisdier overlijdt tijdens luchtvrachttransport?

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1. [1] US Department of Transportation, Office of Aviation Consumer Protection — Air Travel Consumer Report: December 2024, Full Year 2024 Numbers Overheidsrapport

   Air Travel Consumer Report: December 2024, Full Year 2024 Numbers

   Statistiek

   10 animal deaths, 3 injuries, 0 lost, across 161,335 animals transported by US airlines in calendar year 2024 (rate of 0.81 incidents per 10,000 animals)

   Fragment

   “"For calendar year 2024, carriers reported 10 animal deaths, injuries to three other animals, and zero lost animals, for a total of 13 incidents, up from nine incident reports filed in calendar year 2023. For calendar year 2024, 161,335 animals were transported by airlines, for a rate of 0.81 incidents per 10,000 animals transported." ”

   Brongegevens van

   2025-03-01

   Geraadpleegd

   2026-04-11 · gearchiveerde kopie

   Berekening

   Airlines that transport animals in the US are required by 14 CFR Part 235 to report every death, injury, or loss of an animal during air transport to the DOT. The monthly ATCR animal table publishes only a per-carrier count of deaths, injuries, and losses for a single month (the December 2024 report's animal section covers October 2024 and lists no full-year total or transported denominator). The full-year totals used here — 10 deaths, 3 injuries, 0 losses, and 161,335 animals transported for a rate of 0.81 incidents per 10,000 — are the DOT/OACP annual summary published on the "Full Year 2024 Numbers" newsroom release for the December 2024 ATCR, which is the source cited and quoted above. Dividing the 10 reported deaths by the 161,335 animals transported in 2024 gives a per-flight death rate of 1 / 16,134 ≈ 0.0000620, or roughly 6 per 100,000 pet-flights. Including injuries and lost animals as "incidents" raises the combined figure to 13 / 161,335 = 1 in 12,410 per pet-flight. The DOT's headline "0.81 incidents per 10,000" phrasing matches this 1-in-12,000 combined-incident rate, not the death-only rate. Averaging the two DOT full-year releases that break out a death-only count — 2021 (7 deaths / 256,114 transported) and 2024 (10 / 161,335) — gives 17 deaths across roughly 417,000 pet-flights, or about 1 in 24,600; the 2023 release reported only nine combined animal incidents across 124,593 transported and did not publish a separate 2023 death count, so it is excluded from the death-rate average. The 1 in 20,000 headline is a round central point inside this year-to-year range.

   Onafhankelijkheid

   DOT is the upstream source for US airline pet incident data; essentially every other secondary report (AVMA, Time, PetFlight, AWI) depends on the same Part 235 filings, so these are not independent measurements, just different presentations of the same regulatory dataset.

2. [2] American Veterinary Medical Association — Air travel and short-nosed dogs FAQ Gerenommeerde referentie

   Air travel and short-nosed dogs FAQ

   Statistiek

   Approximately half of 122 dog deaths associated with airline flights over a 5-year period involved short-faced brachycephalic breeds; 25 were English bulldogs and 11 were pugs

   Fragment

   “"Over the last 5 years, approximately one-half of the 122 dog deaths associated with airline flights involved these short-faced breeds." ... "25 of the 122 dogs that died over the 5-year period were English bulldogs, followed by 11 pugs." ... "Short-nosed breeds of dogs—such as pugs, Boston Terriers, boxers, some mastiffs, Pekingese, Lhasa Apsos, Shih tzus and bulldogs—are more likely to die on airplanes." ”

   Brongegevens van

   2011-06-01

   Geraadpleegd

   2026-04-11 · gearchiveerde kopie

   Berekening

   AVMA summarised a DOT-data review showing that brachycephalic (short-snouted) breeds accounted for roughly half of all dog deaths on US airline flights in 2005-2010, despite being a much smaller fraction of the total pet population transported. This is the main evidence for the ~10x breed multiplier used in the personal factor table: if English bulldogs alone contributed 25/122 ≈ 20 percent of all dog deaths at a far lower share of total transported pets, their per-flight death rate is roughly an order of magnitude above the all-breed average. Several US airlines (Delta, United, American) subsequently banned many brachycephalic breeds as checked cargo based partly on this data.

   Onafhankelijkheid

   AVMA's summary is built on the same underlying DOT Part 235 animal incident reports as the first source, so the two citations share an upstream dataset. They are used here as complementary rather than independent: the DOT report is the authoritative headline rate, and AVMA provides the breed-level breakdown that the raw DOT tables do not publish in a digested form.

3. [3] Animals (MDPI) / US National Library of Medicine PMC — How Well Do Dogs Cope with Air Travel? An Owner-Reported Survey Study Vakgenoten-beoordeeld

   How Well Do Dogs Cope with Air Travel? An Owner-Reported Survey Study

   Statistiek

   In a 635-dog owner-reported survey, 2 dogs died during the study period, both traveling in cargo holds; 9.4 percent of dogs were much more or extremely more stressed 48 hours post-flight, declining to 0.6 percent at 30 days

   Fragment

   “"Most dogs cope with and recover well from air travel but that there is a group of individuals who suffer physical, mental, and emotional ill health consequences during or after air travel, including death." ... "Only 8.3% of dogs in this survey were brachycephalic breed dogs." ”

   Brongegevens van

   2023-09-22

   Geraadpleegd

   2026-04-11 · gearchiveerde kopie

   Berekening

   The Bulfon et al. owner-reported survey is the most recent peer-reviewed study of how companion dogs tolerate air travel. Used here as a qualitative cross-check on two points: (a) the headline rate of fatal or serious adverse events is small but nonzero even in a self-selected sample of travel-willing owners, and (b) the distribution of stress responses is highly skewed — most dogs recover quickly, a small minority suffer substantial post-flight effects, and fatalities concentrate in cargo hold placement. The study is not powered to compute a per-flight mortality rate directly (n=635 dogs, 2 deaths is not a stable denominator), but it corroborates the DOT pattern that deaths, when they occur, are overwhelmingly in cargo hold rather than cabin travel.

   Onafhankelijkheid

   Bulfon et al. collected an independent owner-reported sample rather than DOT Part 235 filings, so this source is methodologically independent of the first two. It measures a partially overlapping population (pet dogs on commercial flights, mostly European and Australasian carriers) but uses a separate data-collection pipeline.