

United Airlines Killed Our Golden Retriever, Bea - mcantor
http://beamakesthree.com/2012/09/20/united-airlines-killed-our-golden-retriever-bea/

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Major airlines do not guarantee the safety of any living thing in the hold of
the aircraft.

Unless something has changed, my understanding is that small animals (cats,
dogs under something like 10 lbs) are allowed to fly with you in an approved
carrier.

Any other creature must go in the belly of the plane with the baggage. You
will be charged the price of a seat, and in return the airline does not
guarantee any particular temperature range for the baggage hold nor even that
it will remain pressurized. This is for domestic flights in America - I cannot
speak for other air travel situations.

As a proud owner of a 60lb dog, I have sometimes been in the position of
having to arrange alternate transportation (usually driving a car) or altering
plans to accommodate my pooch. I simply cannot take the chance that something
were to happen similar to this story. It is tragic, no doubt, but the
provisions airlines make are very clear and most of this risk could've been
avoided.

Edit: I've thought about this issue a lot. I think it would be in everyone's
mutual interest for airlines to offer a safe way to transport pets or other
small animals. Assuming that's a non-starter with existing carriers, some
other business could serve this niche effectively. I suspect it could be done
profitably.

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jethroalias97
I'd say it was a business opportunity if it wasn't for the abysmal track
record airlines have for remaining profitable transporting humans.

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pasbesoin
OTOH, pursued as a niche market, it might be as profitable as first and
business classes (while targeting similar demographics). (Aren't those
generally fairly revenue-positive portions of the airline industry customer
demographic?)

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EvanKelly
I've never flown with a pet, but I can't imagine the heartache from arriving
at your destination to find one of your pets has died.

It sounds like the owners did everything reasonable to prepare for the flight.

When it comes to finding United responsible, maybe travel crate companies
should equip the crates with temperature sensors, so that an owner could see
the conditions the pets underwent through a flight.

Owners of other pets on the flight could have seen how hot it got in the
compartment, and realized what kind of peril their animals were in as well.

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gte910h
They definitely have cargo container data recorders that monitor this stuff. I
wonder if there is one for planes.

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EvanKelly
Also, I wonder if United would make that data available for people who have
living cargo (or otherwise precious). I'm certain that United logs the
temperature and humidity of their cargo.

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gte910h
You don't want the airlines doing the logging. They have a disincentive to do
it correctly/report it correctly.

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bryanlarsen
Dead comment from ajju:

When we moved cross country to California, my wife and I were so scared of
this happening to our pup that we opted to drive for 4 days rather than risk
it. Me, and a lot of people I know would be willing to pay at least as much as
a ticket for a person costs to have our pets transported safely by air,
preferably in the cabin instead of as luggage. It doesn't have to be with us,
although I would love it if that was possible. A company called petairways
used to do this, but has recently gone bankrupt. I wonder if there is a viable
way to make this work.

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wushupork
My wife and I did the same thing. When we moved from the midwest to the bay
area, we opted for a cross country drive than to traumatize our little dog. I
cannot imagine this happening to us.

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hartleybrody
Total non-sequitur but this thread has 20 points and 5 comments in 36 minutes,
posted by a 5k+ karma user... and it's buried at the bottom of the second
page? How'd that happen?

I've seen posts with 3 or 4 up votes in an hour make it to the front page.

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dguaraglia
Well, maybe because it really doesn't have much to do with HN? No idea.

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ajju
When we moved cross country to California, my wife and I were so scared of
this happening to our pup that we opted to drive for 4 days rather than risk
it.

Me, and a lot of people I know would be willing to pay at least as much as a
ticket for a person costs to have our pets transported safely by air,
preferably in the cabin instead of as luggage. It doesn't have to be with us,
although I would love it if that was possible.

A company called petairways used to do this, but has recently gone bankrupt. I
wonder if there is a viable way to make this work.

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ericdykstra
This is a very sad story.

I'm sure that most of the time pets are flown, everything is fine, but I don't
trust the TSA and airline workers to my bags, much less a life that I care
about.

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bunderbunder
In the USA, domestic airlines are required to report incidents where pets are
injured, lost, or die while in their custody. A summary of the data is
available here: <http://www.thirdamendment.com/animals.html>

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nezza-_-
Well... I'm really sorry about the loss, but I can't really see where it's
United's fault that the dog died.. Travelling IS stress, always, but there is
absolutely no proof that United is to blame. (Except for the very very bad
reaction at the airport)

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gregcohn
A sensor of some kind seems like a natural and not very hard-to-do thing.
Similar to the tags workers with potential radiation exposure wear to capture
& monitor exposure over time, a sensor could capture heat, motion, etc and be
retrieved via bluetooth or USB afterward (if not wirelessly in real time).
Like a "black box" for your pet.

Has anyone made anything like this?

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dataisfun
wow. Very sorry for your loss!

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pasbesoin
If the call from United to the author's vet really did take place and can be
documented, that is wire fraud. Which is, IIRC, a Federal felony.

Good luck getting a Federal prosecutor to pursue such a case (unless you have
personal connections). However, I would suspect that per United's own internal
policy, the people making and authorizing that call must be terminated. If it
happened to include one of their fancy legal staff, that in itself could be a
significant threat when combined with the proper publicity.

