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Yet Another United Airlines Fuck Up


mango_fandango

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I saw this on the news. Sadly, it was not the worst example of animal cruelty that I saw on the tv news tonight. I feel kind of sick to my stomach about humanity right now. :(

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Some people are massive dicks. Hope this employee gets fired or resigns or something. Surely you look inside a pet carrier to see if there’s an animal in there??

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9 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

Surely you look inside a pet carrier to see if there’s an animal in there??

There are two different statements about that in the article. There's this:

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The attendant later said she did not know the dog was in the bag.

And there's this from a nearby passenger:

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I witnessed a United flight attendant instruct a woman to put her dog carrier with live dog in an overhead bin. The passenger adamantly pushed back, sharing verbally that her dog was in the bag. The flight attendant continued to ask the passenger to do it, and she eventually complied. By the end of the flight, the dog was dead.

There's also a link to a travel blog (I think) with more details. The witness says more:

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Immediately after the flight landed, myself and another witness stayed to speak with various United employees. The flight attendant denied knowing it was a dog, but the man seated next to me said he heard the flight attendant respond to the passenger “you need to put your dog up here” – therefore admitting that she knew an animal was in there.

It all really doesn't make me want to "Fly the friendly skies".

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Also, the dog owner never ck'd on the dog?  It's overhead compartments,  you can get to them easy.  WTF all around.

ETA: the sheeple society we have become while flying is astounding.   

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Why didn't the owner check on the dog who reportedly barked for most of the flight then went quiet???? Beyond belief. 

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The regional airport where I live really needs additional business.  I hope they don't get so desperate that they'd get United in.  

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17 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

Why didn't the owner check on the dog who reportedly barked for most of the flight then went quiet???? Beyond belief. 

I read that there was turbulence bad enough that the owner couldn't get out of her seat to check on the dog.  If she'd tried, I assume she would have gotten in major trouble.

I live within 100 miles of 3 airports.  One of them has only two flights a day -- both on United.  I'd like to give that airport business, but I refuse to fly United.

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The poor dog probably died of shock, oxygen deprivation and possible physical injury if it was tossed around during the turbulence.

Has any one heard of a postmortem taking place?

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18 hours ago, Beermeet said:

Also, the dog owner never ck'd on the dog?  It's overhead compartments,  you can get to them easy.  WTF all around.

ETA: the sheeple society we have become while flying is astounding.   

I read that there was a language barrier and that the woman was timid and possibly intimidated by the flight attendant.

This airline has had so many issues that I'm surprised it's still in business. This story makes me so sad and infuriated. That poor dog did not deserve such a cruel fate.  I'm going to go hug my beagle now.

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Ugh my closest and most convenient airport is a United hub, which makes my life a little more difficult and costly. We used to LOVE flying Continental Airlines, but really haven't been impressed by United since the acquisition. 

Poor families dealing with the both temporary/permanent losses of their doggy family members :( United is making Spirit look like fantastic option from now on...

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I'm at the point where I don't care if I never fly domestically again.  I'll drive or take the train.  My daughter and I took the train from Columbia to Orlando and, while it did take longer, the train was overnight so we could sleep and it was way more comfortable than the plane.  We could also take more baggage.  

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I wish we had a more robust train system. The few times I've taken the train, I've really enjoyed it. Even the commuter trains have more leg room than planes. 

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We don't have passenger train service here at all anymore. I believe the closest Amtrak service is probably a 5 hour drive away. It might still be worth it, if the airlines keep making air travel worse and worse. We mostly stick to car trips.

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15 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

I'm at the point where I don't care if I never fly domestically again.  I'll drive or take the train.  My daughter and I took the train from Columbia to Orlando and, while it did take longer, the train was overnight so we could sleep and it was way more comfortable than the plane.  We could also take more baggage.  

Yeah flying is not my preferred mode of transportation.  I'd rather drive because I don't have to worry as much about baggage limits and the like.  It's more comfortable too.  I've told my classmates that even if Dubuque still had a direct flight to the Twin Cities I wouldn't take it for on campus weeks since I would have to cram everything into a couple bags and have to rent a vehicle while I'm up there.  Same thing for Chicago.  If I'm flying somewhere else then yes I'd use ORD but I wouldn't fly to Chicago if I'm just going there.  It's only a three hour drive for me and I'd rather have my vehicle when I'm there. 

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So you guys are saying hardly anyone takes the train in the US. This is weird to me since I take the train at least 3 times a week if not more and Scotland is about a hundred times smaller than America.

 

Agree though that budget airlines can be no fun, was once on a 5-hour flight to the Canary Islands. A bunch of drunk middle aged women kept cackling behind me and kicking the back of my seat. I'm also really tall and there is NEVER enough legroom unless I opt to be in the seat with the emergency exit.

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36 minutes ago, unsafetydancer said:

So you guys are saying hardly anyone takes the train in the US. This is weird to me since I take the train at least 3 times a week if not more and Scotland is about a hundred times smaller than America.

The public transportation system in America is a joke, in every way. I would LOVE it if we had a decent train and bus system, as a big part of my job is finding transportation for people without cars. Really, the only option is taxis, unless people live in the city near downtown, which means they could take a bus. Medicaid has a service where they provide transportation, but most people I work with refuse to take it because they don't want to use the same taxi as a "sickly" person. But the bus system is no good either. I lived in a town of 300,000 and it could take upwards of four hours on the bus to go from one side of town to the other because it was just so piss-poorly designed. The buses are apparently better in my current city, but if you live in one of the many outlying communities, you're SOL. Unfortunately, if you live in most of America (outside of major cities like Chicago and New York) you really have to have a car to be able to function. Some job descriptions even require that you have "reliable transportation" (read: car) as a prerequisite for applying. 

This turned into a rant, but it's so dang frustrating!! 

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20 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

I would LOVE it if we had a decent train and bus system

I can see your point in that all that sounds even worse than the situation here but ours is not always anything to write home about. The trains are already being cut back which means that a lot of rural communities now rely on crappy infrequent buses to get around. 

Just now about 50% of people here seem to be in favour of better and cheaper public transport. Trains are very pricey and have recently become very unreliable so there is a campaign to take them back into national ownership and make them serve more of the smaller stations. Unfortunately, the other half of the people that live here want to be like the US and are determined to get rid of buses and trains so that everyone should drive. I wish I could somehow let you talk to these people so that they can see how much of a faff that would be. I just don't get why places wouldn't have decent public transport, especially considering it's the best option for older folks to get around (over here over 60s ride for free). I guess I'm also one of those hippy environment people because I would only consider buying a car if I absolutely had to. It's honestly much cheaper to get on the bus even if it is a bit inconvenient sometimes.

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My rural area(upstate NY, halfway between Rochester and Syracuse)has only had a public bus system since the mid-2000s, but only runs 6 am to 6 pm during the week, not at all on Saturday or Sunday, and if you're off the route, you have to take a taxi or use Dial-A-Ride at triple the fare.

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There's also a safety factor involved in taking the bus. At my last job, we had an employee that got assaulted while waiting for the bus to come. So it's not always practical to ride the bus, particularly as a woman. 

In addition to being a lot better for the environment, cars are just dang expensive to own. Insurance, gas, licensing tags, upkeep--it's ridiculous. I drive a car from 1999, and probably will until the day it costs more to repair than it would to just buy a new one. 

As far as seniors go, its sad here because once older adults can't drive for whatever reason, it's so easy for them to become isolated. Driving is so linked to self-sufficiency and freedom here (in a culture that celebrates the heck out of both) that it can be rough trying to get older adults to admit that it's not safe for them to continue driving. 

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It’s also funny how someone upthread posted about something being “only” a three hour drive... to someone in the U.K. that’d be a long drive!! London to Exeter (where I went for university) is apparently about three hours twenty minutes (although it took longer because of traffic and rest breaks etc). But it’s just a reminder of how tiny the U.K. is compared to the US. When the Maxwells were in their touring heyday they’d always mention how some families drove six/seven hours, or whatever. People just wouldn’t bother with that over here. Seven hours would nominally take me from London to Edinburgh (again, this is not taking rest/food/toilet breaks or traffic into account). If parents have young kids, that must be hellish. 

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@mango_fandango--When I was a kid, we used to visit my relatives in California every summer for 2 weeks. (One week in the central valley and one week in the southern part.) It was a 2 day car ride to get there. (We always spent 1 night in a motel each way.)

I don't know how my parents did that with 4 kids and no air conditioning. (The Nevada desert is rather hot in summer.) It got better when we got a car with ac, and as my siblings went on to college and jobs, there was more room in the car. But the "old" days, when I was young? That must have been a tough trip for my parents.

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I saw a report last week about how some city in Texas, IIRC, was just using ride-share in lieu of investing in better public transport like light rail or busses.  The idiot they interviewed was positively giddy about that.  If that jackass's derriere had been within striking distance of my foot....

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