While I’d never entrust my dog to an airline, unless I was flying with Captain Flanagan, I’d expect a little more than a voucher and a reimbursement of the cost of my pet carrier.
Losing luggage is one thing, but how could an airline misplace a dog?
A Canadian man claimed his pet disappeared after he checked the animal with Delta Airlines for a flight from Mexico City to Detroit.
Josiah Allen, of Ontario, told the consumerist.com that Delta offered him an apology and a $200 credit for future Delta travel.
Still weird to me see "Delta" and "Mexico City to Detroit" in the same sentence…
It seems that Mr. Allen isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer:
…According to Allen, the nightmare began when the couple attempted to check Paco with Delta for their connecting flight to Detroit. Allen said a Delta agent told them the pet carrier they purchased for Paco was not big enough. He added that the airline only accepted the carrier after he and his girlfriend signed a waiver releasing Delta of any liability if Paco was injured.
That’s asking for trouble. I retract my earlier statement about expecting more compensation.
Allen said he and his girlfriend arrived in Detroit where they waited for Paco at the pet claim for about twenty minutes. Eventually, according to Allen, a Delta employee informed the couple that the dog was not at the airport and in fact had never been boarded on the plane in Mexico City.
How comforting.
Delta spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott addressed the incident:
“Our staff have conducted exhaustive searches to locate the dog which escaped from its kennel on May 3 in Mexico City. In the meantime, we have been in contact with the dog’s owner to inform them of the situation and to offer our sincere apologies that we have been unable to recover the dog. The owner has also been provided compensation and additionally we have offered to reimburse them for all of the expenses associated with the dog.”
Uh-oh. He escaped?
…A source with the airline said the dog broke out of its kennel on the tarmac and ran away. According to the source, ramp agents chased Paco but the animal escaped through a fence. The source said employees then drove for several hours through a neighborhood near the airport attempting to locate the dog.
Kudos to Delta if this is true. If. Allen isn’t convinced.
…“I do not believe for a second that Paco escaped from his carrier,” he said. “It was a very secure hard plastic pet carrier with two locks and a metal wire door, and there is no way a small dog (he looked like a mix of a wiener dog and a jack russell) could scratch or break his way out of it.”
And the sad thing is, there is no way to verify that. Lesson learned: leave Paco at home.
From reading their story the couple had just adopted the dog in Mexico after finding him on a beach. So they were trying to import the dog from Mexico, maybe there was a hold up with Mexican customs? Did they forgot to bribe the right guy?