Originally Posted by
mduell
More sensationalism, still no numbers/details.
The price has gone up as a result of providing better service (temperature controlled, etc) and safety for the pets.
CO killed 3 pets last year while Delta killed 19 so I'd say the PetSafe program is doing something good.
Should the airline eat the increased handling costs? In effect that's making all passengers subsidize the few who choose to travel with their pets.
Should the airline provide a cheaper, lower level of service that's more risky to the pets health and life?
Your post implies that DL and CO "murdered" the pets. That's far from true. No one shipped/transported more pets than DL last year, so they had the most incidents.
You can read about all the incidents with pets on DL here
http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=ApOW6MX...2011_Delta.doc. You'll see that in most of those cases the pet had a preexisting condition, sometimes not known to the owner.
Transporting pets on airplanes is extremely safe, and all major airlines (except WN AFAIK) transport dozens of pets daily. The issue is that DL accepts pets as baggage (which will set you back only $200), while CO/UA (starting 03/03) does not. Transporting pets as cargo is a lot more difficult, since involves driving to the cargo terminal to drop off pets 4 hours before the flight, and a lot more expensive.