Kitten freezes to death while in Delta’s care
A kitten sent via climate controlled cargo on Delta Air Lines arrived icy cold and died soon afterward. The owners paid $300 to have Snickers, an 11-week-old, 3-pound hairless kitten, from Utah to Connecticut in a climate-controlled air cargo hold of a plane. Delta has, by far, the leading number of pets which have died while being transported.
When the Lombardi arrived at the airport with her two daughters to pick-up Snickers, the kitten was icy cold and couldn’t move her head or paws. Snickers died soon after.
Lombardi bought Snickers a cargo ticket on Delta Airlines that included an extra fee to make sure the kitten was taken off the plane quickly. But it took 50 minutes for the airlines to get the kitten off the plane.
The cargo holds of planes are climate controlled, but runways are not and the National Weather Service said it was 10 degrees when Snickers was removed from the plane at 8:40p.m.
Between November of 2009 and October of 2010, 33 animals died, 11 were injured and five were lost while being transported, according to the DOT. Of those, Delta reported 12 deaths, four injuries and one loss. American Airlines reported eight animal deaths, while Continental Airlines and United Airlines each reported four and Alaska Airlines three. Hawaiian Airlines and American Eagle had one each.
Delta sends customer service representatives to charm school
Delta, the nation’s biggest airline is having the nation’s biggest problems. After finishing highest in customer complaints in the latest DOT airline report and next to last for lost luggage and on-time arrivals, Delta is mandating training.
Placing last among major airlines in customer service, Delta is sending 11,000 of their agents to customer service training workshops. Included are gate agents, ticket counter agents, and baggage check-in agents. The announcement this week follows a Department of Transportation report that Delta had the highest rate of complaints per passenger miles of the country’s largest airlines.
This is the first mandated training devoted to the single issue of customer service in more than a decade for Delta – and potentially the first for those employees that transitioned from Northwest following the merger of the two carriers.
Lawsuit testing airline responsibility for paid luggage
A suit filed against American Airlines in Seattle regarding lost luggage is providing a test of the airlines’ responsibilities in the case of lost luggage in this era of paid luggage on virtually all commercial aircraft flights. The airlines are claiming no responsibility because it is not in the contract of carriage. Do the airlines have an obligation to provide the service they charge for?
American is seeking to dismiss the Seattle-area case, arguing, among other things, that there is no obligation in its contract of carriage to deliver bags on time. In court documents, AA wrote that those seeking obligatory refunds on delayed checked bags are proposing “legal rules that do not now exist.” The carrier also argued that the Airline Deregulation Act supersedes claims made under state law. Absent an earlier resolution, plaintiffs expect the discovery phase to take a year before the case would be “ready for trial by December 2011,” according to a court document.
(Photo: Snickers from www.care2.com)
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
