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A 10 month old puppy was found dead during a flight from Houston to New York after a flight attendant required the family to place the puppy in the overhead bin. After the incident, the flight attendant claimed she was unaware that there was a dog in the bag, but the family claims that she repeatedly told the flight attendant there was a dog and barks were clearly audible. In response to this unfortunate death, United announced that they will be distributing brightly colored tags that customers place on the bags containing their pets that will fly in-cabin.
I think the flight attendant wasn't sure about what to do in this situation and just treated the bag like any other cargo. However, there needs to be a protocol for in-cabin pets that are flying with families to prevent this from happening again, not just a brightly colored bag tag. Pets are part of families and they shouldn't be treated like extra baggage.
1. Do you think the flight attendant and/or United should be charged with animal cruelty?
2. What more can be done to protect pets and animals on planes?
3. How should United compensate for the family?
7 comments:
I think that the flight attendant should be charged with animal cruelty, but because this violated United's animal policy, I think the airline itself should not be charged. I think that United should fire the flight attendant who was responsible. I don't think there necessarily needs to be any changes made to the policy that airlines have on animals but they should ensure that those policies are enforced. In my opinion, United should cover any losses encored by the family and include addition compensation for their emotional stress.
This is the most recent in a long series of scandals for United, they should definitely reform their workplace culture to curb these troubles.
Maybe the flight attendant was unprepared for this kind of situation and that is the airline's fault, however, I think that she should have used common sense and know that the overhead cabin is not the best place for a dog.I think that there should be clear laws and spaces for animals. I don't think the airline meant for this dog to die, and I don't think they should be charged; but I do think that they should compensate the family for this sad incident.
United has a specific policy that allows certain animals to travel in the cabin given that the pet fits and remains in the carrier the whole time, so it does seem that it is the flight attendant solely at fault for this incident. Because of that, I think that the flight attendant should be charged with animal cruelty because the flight attendant insisted on placing the pet in the overhead cabin, when that’s very clearly wrong. I don’t understand how if the flight attendant didn’t know what to do that he or she didn’t consult anyone else or refer to or look up the policy to figure out what actually should be done. All flight attendants working for United and any airline should be responsible for understanding their policies.
This is honestly so so sad. When will United do anything right?! I am not really sure HOW the flight attendant thought that putting a dog in the overhead bins was okay. However, I am confused on how the other flight attendants didn't speak up about it. She should definitely be charged for something, probably animal cruelty. I also think the family should sue them and try to do something about it. There was a witness on the plane who heard the dog barking, but no one did anything. At least now people know not to put a dog in the overhead cabins. :(
I think the flight attendant should be charged with animal cruelty. I think it's ridiculous for the attendant to have obviously lied about mishearing the family in an attempt to save herself. Even if she was confused about what to do, I feel like it would be common sense to not put a living animal in an overhead bin. I think that United's implementation of bright tags is an attempt to try and seem like they are trying to solve the problem, but they know that identifying live cargo is not the problem. They probably need to train their attendants more efficiently or something along those lines. The family should definitely sue the airline.
I believe that the flight attendant is at fault and deserves some type of punishment. It seems as if United continues to be in the wrong, they really need to take a step back and add rules and regulations for their workers before these scandals continue. Although some may say that this is simply a miscommunication, it seems as if it is a problem that relates to the workers that they are hiring.
I agree with my classmates and also believe that the flight attendant should be charged with animal cruelty. Common sense would have told her to not put the puppy in an overheard cabin. And how she claims to have forgotten about it is just proof that she did not care much to begin with, unless she is just saying that to escape possible charges. If she was unsure about what to do, I believe she should have contacted people back at airlines and asked for what procedures should've taken place instead of deciding on her own. Thus, she has no one to blame for the outcome of this but herself and should take full responsibility for this sad incident.
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