Another day, another dog {misshipped}
Mar 16, 2018, 7:49 pm
#19
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Mar 16, 2018, 8:14 pm
#22
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Mar 16, 2018, 8:37 pm
#23
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Had this not been the third dog debacle this week I doubt they wouldn't have diverted. My guess is someone high up made the call to try and avoid another PR CF though not sure this was the right call, many human passengers were no doubt inconvenience (some may have missed connections, meetings, etc) for this "save" which was really only a few hundred miles...seems putting the pooch in a van and driving it to the owners house would have been a better solution. I have to imagine that whomever is the top dog at the Pet Safe division is busy dusting off their resume at this point...
Mar 16, 2018, 8:41 pm
#24
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Had this not been the third dog debacle this week I doubt they wouldn't have diverted. My guess is someone high up made the call to try and avoid another PR CF though not sure this was the right call, many human passengers were no doubt inconvenience (some may have missed connections, meetings, etc) for this "save" which was really only a few hundred miles...seems putting the pooch in a van and driving it to the owners house would have been a better solution. I have to imagine that whomever is the top dog at the Pet Safe division is busy dusting off their resume at this point...
Mar 16, 2018, 10:09 pm
#27
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I actually was writing an email to someone I know at United and I started it with "Rough week." And, for some reason, said it it out loud to myself. Probably because I am drugged up on cold meds. Then realized rough=ruff and started giggling.
Mar 16, 2018, 10:12 pm
#28
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Did arrive 2 hours late, 6:50 PM vs 4:45 PM, some late dinners.
Mar 16, 2018, 10:30 pm
#29
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Had this not been the third dog debacle this week I doubt they wouldn't have diverted. My guess is someone high up made the call to try and avoid another PR CF though not sure this was the right call, many human passengers were no doubt inconvenience (some may have missed connections, meetings, etc) for this "save" which was really only a few hundred miles...seems putting the pooch in a van and driving it to the owners house would have been a better solution. I have to imagine that whomever is the top dog at the Pet Safe division is busy dusting off their resume at this point...
Of course not.....the diversion was just for show. Some big dog at UA decided to spend a boatload of money to inconvenience a planeload of human customers for a dog that probably didn't know the difference. However, the PR probably looks good until you think about it for a few seconds.
I'm imagining a business person on the flight apologizing for a missed dinner meeting by saying that it was some dog's fault, sort of like the dog ate my homework. It could have also been interesting to hear the inflight announcements about the diversion and its reason. This adds a new dimension to airline operational unreliability, although UA probably blamed ATC as they would have needed to get ATC permission to divert and land.
OTOH, it probably cost more to dispatch the private jet to Japan to retrieve the dog that was sent there by mistake, although that might have been a relatively unpublicized two for one deal if the dog that should have been sent to Japan got to ride in the private jet on its outbound positioning flight.
I'm imagining a business person on the flight apologizing for a missed dinner meeting by saying that it was some dog's fault, sort of like the dog ate my homework. It could have also been interesting to hear the inflight announcements about the diversion and its reason. This adds a new dimension to airline operational unreliability, although UA probably blamed ATC as they would have needed to get ATC permission to divert and land.
OTOH, it probably cost more to dispatch the private jet to Japan to retrieve the dog that was sent there by mistake, although that might have been a relatively unpublicized two for one deal if the dog that should have been sent to Japan got to ride in the private jet on its outbound positioning flight.