Air Canada Reportedly Delivers “Overnight” Live Pet Shipment 4 Days Late

Despite dozens of calls to the airline, a pet shop owner says she was left with a delivery of dead aquarium fish and traumatized furry creatures after the animals arrived days late.

A routine overnight shipment of live animals to a Newfoundland pet shop reportedly took a macabre turn when the exotic fish, chinchillas, hamsters, and geckos ended up spending more than four days in transit. A Pet Smart store employee helped to feed the stranded animals while they were bumped from flight after flight departing from Halifax/Robert L. Stanfield International Airport (YHZ), but shop owner Terri-Anne Crisby said when the animals finally arrived, many of the fish were DOA and the other animals were covered in feces and clearly traumatized.

Crisby claims that dozens of phone calls to Air Canada representatives resulted in frustration and misleading information. She noted that a lack of reliable information from the airline made a bad situation much worse.

“Every representative I spoke to would tell me, ‘Yep, they’ll be on the next flight,'” Brisby told CBC News. “And then I would be happy thinking that they’re coming on the next flight, that I’ve gotten somewhere. And they didn’t show up. I was trying everything in my power to get them here as soon as I can. I just felt so helpless I think [Air Canada staff] even knew me by first-name basis because I was calling so much.”

Air Canada blamed the delay on “extreme weather in Atlantic Canada and the peak travel period prior to Christmas.” Air Canada spokesperson Angela Mah said the airline goes out of its way to ensure live animals are handled conscientiously and that was also the case in this unfortunate situation. “We work with local kennels to help care for animals while in transit,” she told the newspaper. “We are grateful that a local pet store was able to care for their well-being.”

Crisby says she is less concerned about her losses than preventing this sort of inhumane ordeal from reoccurring. ”The only thing I want out of this is to make sure any future problems will be corrected,” Crisby told reporters. “Make pets priority, not people’s underwear and pants.”

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