Moving Pets Abroad Has Always Been Expensive. It’s About to Get Worse.

Melissa Abell will do anything for her family, including making the kinds of financial sacrifices that most people would not consider.

To fly her family — a small but loyal troop of one German shepherd, one Australian kelpie and three cats — from Louisville, Ky., to London this September, it will cost Ms. Abell countless hours of research, loads of paperwork and an estimated $4,300 just in cargo fees. To help save for it, she is cutting a range of costs, including reducing bills, eliminating meals out and forgoing certain entertainment.

Despite her efforts, Ms. Abell is worried that price tag may increase.

IAG Cargo, the cargo-handling arm of multiple airlines that Ms. Abell is using to transport her animals, recently announced it was raising its prices along some routes beginning March 1. The move is drawing ire and panic from pet owners with plans to relocate, particularly to and from Britain and the United States.

The increase, which could triple or even quadruple costs for some travelers, may force some pet owners to choose between paying higher prices to relocate their pets or leaving them behind.

“To reflect the complexities of this bespoke service and the cost of providing the very best care for pets” traveling as cargo, “we have made some amendments to our prices,” a spokeswoman for IAG Cargo said in a statement on Wednesday.

Details around the new pricing structures and affected routes were unclear, but some companies that work with IAG Cargo were already seeing the effects. Kimberley Cirone, a director at Pets Abroad UK, a pet relocation company that takes care of all the requirements for customers and works with airlines, said the costs for transferring pets between Britain and the United States were increasing 400 percent “with no warning, no consideration, no explanation.”