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The death of a family dog on board a United Airlines flight has prompted outrage nationwide.
Catalina Robledo and her two children were boarding United Flight 1284, from Houston to New York’s LaGuardia airport, when a flight attendant noticed their dog carrier sticking out into the aisle. Despite telling the flight attendant that their puppy, Kokito, was in the bag, the flight attendant stuck it in the overhead compartment.
After the three-hour-long flight, Catalina removed the bag and found that Kokito had died.
The family says they did everything right. Kokito was in a TSA-approved pet carrier, and they’d paid to keep him under the seat. There was also no issue on the first flight, from New York to Houston. Only on the return flight.
Kokito was a 10-month-old French Bulldog that the Robledo’s thought of as a member of the family. 11-year-old Sophia said: “He was my best friend. I slept with him. He was a big support for me.”
The flight attendant has since claimed that she didn’t know there was a dog in the carrier, but the family says that’s not likely because she lifted the bag herself and could hear it barking. United Airlines has since taken responsibility for the incident. They said in a statement: “This was a tragic accident that should never have occurred, as pets should never be placed in the overhead bin. We assume full responsibility for this tragedy and express our deepest condolences to the family and are committed to supporting them. We are thoroughly investigating what occurred to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Also interesting in is this report — United initially offered the Robledo family money in exchange for silence.
Believe it or not, this isn’t even the only dog mishap on United Airlines this week. For real, if you Google “United Airlines Dog” you’ll see another story showing United’s shameful track record. Yeah, United Airlines sucks so much that they put a dog from a domestic flight probably on a plane to Japan.
The Swindle family just moved from Oregon to Kansas, but when they got off their plane, United presented them with a Great Dane, a dog that is definitely not their 10-year-old German Shepherd, Irgo.
Now, United wants is customers to know that this kind of thing is intolerable.
In total, 18 animals died on United Airlines flights last year. In fairness, United also transported more animals than any other airline, but it doesn’t seem like much of a selling point if your company boasts that your animal only has a 1 in 8,000 chance of dying on their flight.
What do you guys think? Are we being too hard on United? Should there be a national boycott until they get their act together? Let us know in the comments below.
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