[PyrNet-L] A warming story about United Airlines

[Pbpyr@aol.com]

This was posted to another List that I'm on...but what a neat story....!

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Peter is a  coursing judge who, with his wife, breeds salukis.  A wonderful
story!!
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We all have horror stories of dogs traveling on Airlines and I must confess
we try to ship our dogs by air as little as possible. There have been some
terrible stories in the press and on Television recently.

Today, however, I was exposed to an incident that proved to me that
sometimes the airlines really go out of their way to make it safe for our
traveling pets. I fly a lot for business as some of you know, today I was
on UA 1783 from Denver to Ontario California, which now has a really nice
new terminal.

This was my 104th flight on United this year. The temperature in Denver was
15 below zero. As we climbed up out of Denver I could see Pikes Peak on my
left as the Captain came on over the speakers and told us he had a problem.
He told us that the heat had gone out in the cargo hold and that there was
a dog traveling in a kennel down there. If we did not land in a warm place
soon the dog would freeze to death. He told us that he was heading for
Albuquerque 400 miles South. The Captain told us not to be concerned about
all the liquids coming off the wing because they were jettisoning fuel so
that they could land in Albuquerque . I guess we were too heavy for that
little airport.

I reasoned that he could not land in one of the Colorado Airports as they
were too cold and that he could not go West because he would have had to
climb up over the Rockies and that would be colder yet. He could reach New
Mexico without going very high. In fact the weather in Albuquerque was
quite nice as we landed and waited with eagerness to see what had happened
to the dog.

As we all stood on the right side of the plane peering out of the windows,
watching the ground crew get into the cargo hold I spoke to the dog's
owner, a very concerned young lady who described it as being as being  a 15
pound Terrier. I had hoped it was a Malamute and not a Mexican Hairless, I
guess this was halfway in between.

The dog was fine, I was told it continued the journey in the passenger
cabin. He had probably been asleep all the time in the cargo bay.

I feel I need to tell this story because we hear so many negative things
about the airlines;  this is a positive story. We all got a $25 discount
coupon to compensate us for the delay, it was really unnecessary, the
Captain got a round of applause when we got to our destination three hours
late. I estimate it cost United Airlines between $10,000 and $100,000 to
save the life of that little dog. I will continue to give United Airlines
my support.

Happy Holidays!

pete>>