Biocourier

Laboratory animal transport, to and from Greece

We move laboratory animals between research facilities, university departments, breeders and clinical laboratories, within Greece and to and from the rest of the world. It is a small corner of what we do and an unusual one: the consignment is alive, the window is fixed by the receiving facility rather than by us, and almost every leg involves somebody else’s rules as well as ours.

What we do

We work this through our network of specialist partners, and we carry the arrangement end to end rather than handing you between them:

• Door to door, from the sending facility to the receiving one.
• The airline air waybill, issued for the flight leg.
• Customs clearance, where the transfer is to or from a country outside the EU.
• An air-conditioned vehicle on the road leg, at both ends of a flight.

Things to watch out for

• The receiving facility sets the terms, and it sets them early. Acclimation periods, health status, the paperwork it will accept - all of that comes from them, and it is what the schedule has to be built around. Ask them before you ask us for a date.
• The airline has its own acceptance rules. Live animals are carried under standards of the airline’s own, and not every carrier accepts every species on every route. Which carrier will take the shipment can decide the routing, not the other way round.
• A road leg is not the easy part. It is where the temperature is hardest to hold - a vehicle standing in the sun is the risk, not the flight - which is why the road legs are run in an air-conditioned vehicle at both ends.
• Allow for the documentation, not just the transit. Health certification and import permissions take longer to obtain than the journey takes to fly, and they are the usual reason a date moves.
• Tell us the species and the numbers at the first conversation. Both change the container, the carrier and the paperwork, and finding out late is what turns a straightforward shipment into an expensive one.

Official sources

Check these directly rather than taking anyone’s summary, including ours.

• IATA - Live Animals Regulations: the standard airlines apply to live animal shipments.
• Hellenic Ministry of Rural Development and Food: the Greek authority for animal health and the movement of animals.

Every one of these shipments is arranged individually. Call +30 210 64 66 400 or email info@kanga.gr with the species, the numbers and the two facilities involved, and we will tell you what the transfer needs.