I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this excited about a piece of dog travel news. I opened an update for Alaska Airline’s “Traveling with Pets” policy, and read that as of today, August 15, 2011, Alaska “will accept cats and dogs only for travel to and from Hawaii” (emphasis in the original). I kept reading, waiting for the inevitable sentence saying that in-cabin pets are not allowed, and it never appeared — so I called the airline, and asked about in-cabin pets, and was told, repeatedly, that dogs and cats would be allowed to travel in-cabin to Hawaii. They would, of course, have to meet Alaska’s normal requirements for in-cabin pets, and they would have to meet Hawaii’s stringent quarantine requirements — the airline provides helpful links to quarantine information, and please see this Dog Jaunt post about shortening your dog’s quarantine time to a few hours.

The customer service rep I spoke to was bemused by my excitement — I think she started to understand why I was so giddy when I told her that until now, the only way to take an in-cabin dog to Hawaii, short of joining a private flying club, was to fly through Incheon on Korean Air, but I didn’t get the sense that Alaska would be making a big noise about this change in policy.