How safe is your pet when flying?

[Catherine]

This is something we worry about if we have to fly with a pet. It seems we have good reason to worry. For all the fancy promises of good care, the animals are neglected badly and some of them die from the experience.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0

The idea of pet safe travel is good and the PR work to make people feel safe is well done.
It fails when it comes to the actual handling of the animals. If the baggage handlers treat pets the way they treat the rest of our luggage it is no wonder things go wrong.

I flew in Nov 1987. I still have a suitcase out there somewhere that wasn't on the plane I was on. Do you suppose it is still out there travelling? Good thing it wasn't a pet.

[Tobi]

I never ever trusted the idea of pets in the cargo hold. I think that is a terrible idea. I would never ever have flown anywhere with Misty. The only reason I ever took her on a train is because she could be right with me all the time.

[Catherine]

I agree, I don't trust my pets on a plane. Misty would have hated it. Worse, they wouldn't have looked after her.

The number of animals that die while travelling is too high. They are assuming that as long as most make it alive, it is good enough.  Instead of reviewing how they are failing, they are blaming the animals. It is making excuses to say their must have been a pre-existing condition. That is a convenient way of avoiding responsibility.

Unfortunately the train or a car is not always an option. It might be better to find a family member to keep a pet while you have to be somewhere else. It would be safer.