Airlines ranked for pet travel
WalletHub published a ranking of airlines that scores on-time performance, comfort and pet safety — a quick reference if you’re planning to fly with an animal. (A social share pointed to the WalletHub list that includes pet-safety as a category.) (x.com). Separately, a Google Flights API hack called “Fli” — showcased via Claude AI demos — is being discussed on social as a way some travelers are finding cheaper business-class fares. (The social thread showing the Claude/Fli technique gained notable attention.) (x.com).
WalletHub’s latest airline ranking gives pet travelers a quick shortlist: SkyWest Airlines, United Airlines and Envoy Air tied for best airline for pets. (wallethub.com) The ranking compares 11 carriers across 14 measures, including cancellations, delays, mishandled baggage, denied boardings, comfort and pet incidents. WalletHub published the current list on April 14, 2025, under its “Best Airlines in 2026” package. (wallethub.com) WalletHub said the three pet leaders had no reported animal incidents in the period it studied. It also said Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and Spirit Airlines do not transport animals. (wallethub.com) The pet category sits inside a broader scorecard that named Spirit Airlines the best airline overall, Delta Air Lines the most reliable, and JetBlue Airways and Hawaiian Airlines the most comfortable. WalletHub said it weighted costs against amenities so cheaper carriers were not automatically penalized for charging extra fees. (wallethub.com) The animal-safety data behind rankings like this comes from federal reporting rules. Under Department of Transportation regulations, covered carriers must file a report within 15 days after each month ends if an animal is lost, injured or dies during air transport. (ecfr.gov) The Department of Transportation’s full-year consumer report said airlines transported 161,335 animals in 2024 and logged 13 incidents, including 10 deaths and three injuries. That worked out to 0.81 incidents per 10,000 animals transported. (transportation.gov) A second travel tool is circulating alongside the pet-ranking posts: Fli, an open-source Python library that says it gives programmatic access to Google Flights data. Its developer says the software reaches Google Flights through “reverse engineering” rather than browser scraping. (github.com) Fli’s documentation says users can search routes, scan date ranges and sort by cheapest fares, and it includes a Model Context Protocol server for artificial intelligence assistants such as Claude. Example commands in the docs show searches like John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport across June 2026 dates. (punitarani.github.io) Google already offers business-class search, date grids, price graphs and fare tracking inside Google Flights without extra software. The social-media interest around Fli centers on automating those searches and feeding the results into artificial intelligence tools, not on a separate fare inventory. (google.com) For travelers flying with an animal, the practical split is simple: WalletHub’s list is a ranking built from service and safety data, while Fli is a search shortcut for fares. One helps narrow the airline; the other tries to narrow the price. (wallethub.com) (punitarani.github.io)
