Future-dog-owner

Animals that won't fit under a seat travel in the cargo hold.

In this situation all you can do is boycott them... Do not fly with them no matter how cheap the ticket is, even if you are not flying with a dog.

Hit them in the pocketbook... the person spitting back those emails has no connection to the top and is making $9-11 dollars an hour to spit back form responses all day... That doesn't hurt American Airlines, but all of the sudden if ALL dog owners quit using them... they may have to re-evaluate their stance on breeds...

After 9-11 AA hasn't been exactly topping the market for flights anyway...

More info...

Here is a link to the story about how it all began... http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/ns/...0&w=RTR&coview=

I want to know who's pit bull did it?

Ain't that stupid? Oh well.. they are getting theirs...they will prob join United Airlines in Chapter 13 soon anyway....serves em right for being so dumb.

They might figure it out when some Basset Hound escapes and chews through the Hydrolic lines that control the flaps.... lol

A bit of perspective is needed here.

Air travel in this country is incredibly safe because there is a mindset that anything that could cause a crash will not be tolerated.

Many of the Federal Aircraft Regulations are written in blood. Everytime I get a little note from the FAA saying I need to inspect this or replace that seemingly perfectly good part, I fume for a bit. Then I realize I got this letter because usually one or more people have died due to this problem.

You may not like the fact that your favorite breed has been supposedly dissed. However, American has a greater responsibility to it's human passengers. In this case, a dog destroyed important systems on a jet carrying passengers. Chomping through some other cables could have had dire consequences for all aboard.

According to the article, one of the systems disrupted was the air-to-ground comm link. That is bad. VERY bad.

In today's nervous, post-9/11, environment, a jet that stops talking to air traffic control becomes a very large and immediate concern. It also becomes a large fat target for the jets that are scrambled to check it out and if necessary, blast it from the sky.

If American believes this is safety of flight issue, they should not be second-guessed. You are, of course, free to choose alternate transportation. Last I heard, walking was largely unregulated. Just allow a bit of time to get to your destination.

Well it seems they are not the only ones from the article you posted. "Among the other Texas-based carriers, Southwest Airlines does not transport animals and Continental Airlines bans American Pit Bull Terriers." Wouldn't using only secure crates/carriers for the dogs be a wiser solution? I have never flown a dog, do dogs have to go in airline supplied carriers or can the owner supply them? Was the carrier faulty or did somebody not secure it properly? Just curious here. One of my dogs did enormous damage to my furniture through a crate, one of the metal types, still hard to imagine how he did it. He would not have been able to do the damage had he been in a Furrari or similar style one.

Last I checked, all dogs have teeth. Which means they are all capable of damage. Way back we had a 3 month old German Shepherd mix puppy in our family that ate the entire kitchen door...a puppy! A friend had a 6 month old Brittany and she chewed up their lawn chairs and picnic table like they were fleece toys ... a 40lb dog at most. The list goes on.

If they were really worried about the damage they would've banned ALL breeds or ALL large breeds. Instead they just happened to choose dogs listed on certain state's BSL bill. hmmm...

I'm second guessing this regulation because their motivation for it was NOT out of concern for public safety. This could've happened with ANY dog. The amount of damage could've been inflicted by a number of breeds. The airline has chosen to take this incident as a reason to ban these breeds which makes their job easier while they can still make the money shipping our puppies???

As far as the crates go, when shipping the owner has to have a regulation crate - they don't accept wire ones the last time I heard and it must be of a certain size. You can also pay a fee and use the airlines crate.

A simplier way to deal with this problem, if it were a concern to public safety, would to require these dogs be in stronger crates. Its an inconvience for them but since their motivation is to keep passenger and crew safe, they should be all for it, right? :rolleyes:

 Quote:

Originally posted by rottweiler_fancier:


A simplier way to deal with this problem, if it were a concern to public safety, would to require these dogs be in stronger crates. Its an inconvience for them but since their motivation is to keep passenger and crew safe, they should be all for it, right? :rolleyes:

I think that's what I said. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

 Quote:

Originally posted by Laureen:
I think that's what I said. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I didn't say it was my own original idea <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Originally posted by Laureen:
Wouldn't using only secure crates/carriers for the dogs be a wiser solution? I have never flown a dog, do dogs have to go in airline supplied carriers or can the owner supply them? Was the carrier faulty or did somebody not secure it properly? Just curious here. One of my dogs did enormous damage to my furniture through a crate, one of the metal types, still hard to imagine how he did it. He would not have been able to do the damage had he been in a Furrari or similar style one. Airlines DO NOT provide carriers. Funny part about all this is that the airline can deny shipping your dog if they don't like the looks of your crate. I had to ship a standard poodle back to NC and had been warned by another person who ships lots of dogs to have more than one available carrier on the day of shipment. I had a furrari, and one of the cheapy wal mart full size carriers. They would not take the furrari...

I agree that a breed specific ban was stupid. They could have just requried that certain breeds be shipped in the aluminum carriers(not a wire one). I seriously doubt a dog will break out of one of those.