saccoNY

If you have read the most recent (Feb) Conde Nast Traveller, it has an article about how unsafe checking your pets as cargo can be.

I am sorry to say that Continental is significantly worse than any other airline, legacy or otherwise. According to the article they have had 8 pet deaths while in their custody and 3 injured between May and Sept 2006!!! The next worst airline was United at 2 deaths and one lost. Most others had 1 or zero.


This sounds so scary for pet owners! and sounds like if they cant take care of your beloved pet, then they shouldnt take them in the first place

Can you imagine the nightmare of taking a trip with your family and trying to explain to your kids why your family dog for the last 8 years, Fido, is stiff as a board!

JetAway

Continental DOES NOT =Pet killers. All airlines go to great lengths to handle animals in their care responsibly. It is not in their interest to do otherwise. But air travel is very stressful to animals and it invloves a certain amount of hazard. I've raised both show and pet dogs for years and have never transported them by air. Instead, when necessary, I've paid to have them driven to various locations for breeding & show purposes, Unless it is an emergency don't take Spot or Puff on an airplane.

chasbondy

Thats why God invented dog pounds

ClipperClub

Im cabin crew for UA. At UA when we have a pet onboard a flight, the ramp is required to bring up a 'receipt' that the animal has been boarded in the 'hold'. This receipt is then given to the cabin attendant and passed to the pet owner as confirmation of boarding.

A TIP: If you board your pet, please ask the purser or other cabin attendant to verify with the pilot that your pet has A) Been boarded (receipt or not) and B) The pet was boarded into the pit with cargo heat.

Im sure that most crew you encounter would not find this to be a hassle, and it supersedes the company policy. When I receive a receipt of this nature from the ramp I automatically go through this double-check process, but many pursers and flight attendants may not.

Please don't take a chance, and please don't worry that you are being a bother. Most crew know how important pets are, and if you get any attitude just move on to the next.

farenthold

I don't believe CO is any worse than any other airline. I even saw an almost new climate controlled van with cute dog and cat pictures on it today loading baggage in BOS with something like "CO is pet friendly" colorfully painted on the sides. Seems they take animal care seriously enough to market it.

dgilman

These number are meaningless. It's all about the percentages. How many pets did CO transport compared to others. How many sick or injured pets were transported?

If more patients die at a hospital, is it because the hospital is bad, or because the hospital takes sicker patients?

Get us some real numbers before you start raising the alarm...

J.Edward

Beat me to it.

That said, there have been several posts here where pets died due to negligence and mismanagement on CO's part... and then their lackluster response in addressing the problem.

If CO's stats are inline with the rest of the industry for the percentage of pets transported safely than one would think CO is transporting more pets than their competitors and a higher death rate is understandable.

But on the other hand, if these animals are dying because they were loading into a cargo hold in the summer, than the plane sat on the hot tarmac for an hour or so without ice or the ac running, and when the plane finally got to the destination and nothing was done to check the pets health... or offer medical assistance... or contact the owners... than CO deserves a very large

Either way, the data posted does not offer enough resolution to draw a conclusion... saccoNY is there any way you can post more info (e.g sample size, causes of death, etc.)

perezoso

For once, I heartily agree with chasbondy. Dogs were not designed for jet travel.

Leave the creatures at home, or if they must be taken, send 'em by land. If it's over an ocean or for an older person or somebody else who has some wierd but genuine psychological dependency on a critter and must fly, make sure such critter and cage comfortably fit underneath the seat in front of you. (And a supply of pet narcotics fits in your front pocket.)


.

ralfp

Unless this pattern repeats year after year, the number of deaths may too small to make a statistically significant judgement about CO's treatment of pets.

However, perhaps the hub location has something to do with it? A couple of hot and humid hours on the ground in a locked carrier at IAH might kill a few dogs (data is for the summer).

Xyzzy

Continental transports FAR more pets than its competitors. A lot of other airlines refuse to transport pets at all. Are those somehow higher on the magazine's list? Remember, 99.56173% of statistics are made up. This applies just as much to Conde Nast magazine as it does to anything else.

skij18

Moderator..please wipe out headline

saccoNY

I dont disagree.....The article does not state total number of pets carried, nor the reason of death or dismemberment...ah hem...I mean injury. (sorry, I shouldnt be so cavalier) My assumption (you know what happens when you assume) was that CO would carry more or less the same number of pets of other legacy carriers (like UA or AA), if not less due to less pax, and CO's numbers really stuck out like a sore thumb. For all we know a cage of 7 rare birds died on one day skewing the statistics. But CO's rate of death and injury during this time period were triple to quadruple the rates of the next airline.

I was really just stating what I read, and trying to come up with a sensationalist headline like they do in virtually every news organization in this country. Sorry if I offended anyone.

saccoNY

Headline changed so as not to offend anyone.

IAH_FLYER

We have transported our dog with Continental many times with no problems. Of course, we did not travel with him during the summer, and all of our flights were non stops to/from IAH. I also had no problems getting confirmation from the flight deck (via the cabin crew) that he had been loaded.

Tod E Tosser

You just did it again! We have no idea what CO's rate of death and injury is; just a raw number. CO may be the only carrier that actively solicits animal biz. Others seem to ignore, discourage, or even prohibit non-human fliers. If you can show us CO has a significantly higher rate of death than the others then there might be cause for concern.

Assuming the OP quoted the article accurately, this appears to be a case of a writer/editor who is either lazy or has an agenda.