Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:52pm
We brought Buffy, our cat, over in 2006. I believe animals can only travel from certain airports, we had to fly from Gatwick rather than our usual airport. We flew with Monarch and had to drop her off about 3 hours before take off somewhere at the edge of the airport and she had to travel in a crate that conformed to certain size regulations.
When we boarded, I asked a member of cabin crew if Buffy was on board, she checked and confirmed she was. (I had read of animals dying on US internal flights because the crew had forgotten to turn on the heating in the hold.)
At Alicante, we were directed to a customs office to pick her up, again it was somewhere on the edge of the airport. She was obviously a bit frightened but soon got over it and quickly settled down to her life in the sun.
Hope this helps, bearing in mind this was 13 years ago (and Monarch are no more).