For Anna Mallea, that headline may be an unfortunate play on words. After a flight from Texas aboard Continental Airlines, her family dog, Sassy, is missing.
Sassy arrived in San Francisco during an unusual heat wave, with temperatures well into the 90s. A well-intentioned, but perhaps not forward-thinking, Continental employee felt the dog didn’t look she was feeling well, and decided to open the cage to give Sassy some water.
Unfortunately, Sassy — perhaps unnerved by her long journey in the cargo hold — took that opportunity to run, apparently crossing a busy freeway and disappearing into some hills adjacent to the airport, according to reports. I say “not forward-thinking” because maybe that drink of water should have been given in an enclosed space to prevent Sassy from bolting.
Despite efforts of Ms. Mallea, her daughter, animal control and airline personnel, the search for Sassy has been fruitless.
The International Air Transport Association notes that “taking an animal out of its natural environment or surroundings is by definition stressful.” It goes on to say that “this responsibility is often overlooked,” even by responsible pet owners. IATA offers further guidance here.
What can passengers do to protect the family pet?
Well, the obvious answer would be to drive. The air travel system is complicated. Cargo holds are dark. They are loud. They are subject to extreme temperatures, hot and cold. The animals are loaded and unloaded the same way as suitcases, and try as the airlines might, when it comes right down to it, the animals are cargo. Plain and simple. Then there’s the fact that the animals are handled by fallible human beings.
That advice is all well and good, but is obviously too late for Ms. Mallea. And Sassy. I’m sure she felt that she wasn’t putting Sassy in any danger by shipping her this way, but that’s probably not doing anything to assuage Ms. Mallea’s grief at this point.
Southwest Airlines doesn’t accept pets as cargo. US Airways doesn’t accept any animals in the cargo hold. Period. Perhaps these airlines see the risk involved, or more likely, perhaps they do so to keep their costs down.
To help advise customers about this subject, The United States Department of Transportation publishes as part of its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report an account of injuries or deaths of animals shipped by airlines.
But just viewing the numbers on the report can be deceptive.
Take June’s report, for example. At first glance, it would appear American Airlines did worse than Delta for the month. But if you delve a little deeper, you can see that both animal deaths on American were cases where aged animals did not live through the journey. In those cases, I’d personally fault the owners for shipping animals in poor health, not the airline.
Maybe the owner’s names should be listed? The government doesn’t do well with subjectivity, but it seems to me like these cases shouldn’t be giving American Airlines a black eye on the Transportation Department’s report.
But in Delta’s case, a parrot arrived in Orange County, Calif. frozen to death. When loading the aircraft in the connecting city, dry ice in another cargo shipment had been loaded too closely to the bird in the cargo bin. The resulting cold temperatures caused an apparently otherwise healthy animal to freeze — and die — while in transit.
What’s more, the Transportation Department’s report on animals doesn’t give us a frame of reference like it does in other categories. Complaints, for instance, are measured against passenger enplanements. Animal injuries and deaths are not measured against the number of shipments, so there really is nothing for us to look at but a single number.
I’ve seen and heard of too many mishaps with animals being shipped as cargo during my airline career. When my family dog, Murray, goes anywhere with us, he gets to ride in the back seat of my station wagon, like he should. He doesn’t even go in the “way-back” with the luggage. He gets to hang his head out the window, bark at passersby, slobber, and occasionally lick me on the back of my head.
Update: Attempts to find out the status of Sassy’s whereabouts from Continental have been fruitless.
Rochelle, a customer relations representative, knew nothing and pulled the oldest call center employee trick in the book: placing the customer on indefinite hold instead of transferring the call immediately as promised. This deceptive trick allows the agent to take a break while appearing busy to the supervisor monitoring call productivity.
After holding for quite a while, I hung up and called the PetSafe division of Continental’s cargo department, which answered on the first ring, underscoring my point about the unauthorized break and disservice to the customer.
Surprisingly, even the PetSafe department knew nothing of this incident and an employee named Elvira brusquely advised me to “call corporate.” A call to Continental’s public relations office was not returned.
