American Airlines has placed new restrictions on which breeds they will fly. You can see their new policy here under "Exceptions to Canine Acceptance"

http://www.aacargo.com/shipping/instructions/animals.htm

It says:

"Exceptions to Canine Acceptance
American Airlines does not accept the following breeds of dogs: American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Bull Terrier, Doberman Pinscher and Rottweiler. The acceptance of crossbreeds of dogs that contain one or more of these breeds is also prohibited. However, puppies of these breeds may be accepted for shipment when between the age of 8 and 12 weeks old. Also, AA Cargo personnel may refuse acceptance of any dog that exhibits aggressive behavior."

This is outright breed discrimination and if you don't want other airlines to take up a similar policy, call, write in or e-mail your comments. here are some contacts:

The Chief Exectutive Officer of American Airlines is
Don Carty
P.O. Box 619616
Mail Drop 5623
DFW, Tx 75261
The Customer Relations for American Airlines can be reached at:
Telephone: 817-967-2000
E mail: from their website: http://www.americanair.com
Snail mail:
AA Inc.
P.O. Box 619612
Mail Drop 2400
DFW, Tx 75261

Please take note of this policy because you will need to find a new airline to ship your youth dogs of these breeds, to ship a dog to a competition, to ship a female of these breeds for a breeding, etc.

I'm emailing them right now. My email will include a copy of this article (note the name of the airline in the story). If they're so concerned about safety, why don't they try spending more time screening passengers (haven't heard of any bomb-carrying dogs yet) or keeping their pilots sober!! If a dog (any breed) is showing obvious signs of aggressive behavior, don't ship him. But that policy alone should suffice. To single out entire breeds is a huge disservice to all responsible dog owners. Once again we have to suffer for the morons mistakes. Sorry to vent. I thought I should blow off some steam before I finish my email to AA.

Hey Everyone! I also E-Mailed them and let my feelings known with them.I suggested to them they need to hire more staff to read all the negative mail they will receive! Tell everyone you know to write or E-Mail them. Lets show them that the dog community is no-one to mess with! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Ok I added my 2 cents also!! I hate breed discrimination!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

This is my perception on the deal. The insurance companies have to pay for this kind of stuff. They have to pay for all the of the dogs. These three breeds just happen to be a few that they feel they can get enough backing on to ban. This makes it finanically easier not to have to pay for a chunk of the dogs onboard now. They would've added the GSD possibly too but it wouldn't work because of law enforcement.

This is just my opinion. I might be wrong, it just seems to me they could get away with banning these three breeds, so they did. It's finanically less of a burden for them. They will claim that statistically there more likely to be lawsuits/other legal trouble by having these breeds on board. Insurance companies don't want to pay for anything they don't have to. If they could ban all dog breeds and that made their job easier or more profitable they'd do it.

Maybe I'm full of it, but this is usually how big corporations and insurance companies pull all their other crap.

I agree with Brad. It's all about insurance companies and $$$. It's what makes the world go around.

However, we have restricted only those breeds of dogs which
experts have agreed can be considered aggressive in nature.

I don't know why but I find that funny. What about the dogs that aren't aggressive and that are the breeds that are banned?

Because the insurance companies feel that out of the hundreds of other breeds out there these three or four will give them statistically the most trouble.

They could go ahead and do all of them but look how much money they'd lose. American Airlines has to pay certain liability coverage. If they did all breeds, look at how much money they'd lose. That's alot of money. The insurance companies want you to pay and pay. That's how they make their money. They feel by taking these breeds off, they'll still make money and not have near as much trouble.

As far as American Airlines goes, they just don't want to pay the extra fee. They could care less I would imagine. They're not going to pay extra to insure these breeds. Mainly this is the insurance companies fault. It's just like the Apartment business, if you need to do this for a living and you can't get insured unless you restrict certain breeds, then what choice do you have? I'm not for this in anyway. I think this is another thing we've lost because of corporations, as usual.

I hate the generic responses they send out. Thats the exact same reply I got but addressed to me. Just shows even more to me that their not a company I plan to fly with.

The insurance companies may dictate such and such but lets see what AA says when the stock market has a different opinion on this.