Warning for shipping puppies with United Airlines / Continental Airlines - Page 1

Recently United Airlines and Continental Airlines have merged. I have been shipping puppies since 1997 and until now I have had very good experiences. In March 2013 I used United Airlines to ship 4 of my puppies. 3 puppies were lost, missed flights or did not make their connections and neither myself or my clients were notified.  This week ( May 3 rd, 2013 ) I booked 4 flights with United Airlines and my call was sent to an overseas call center. After 1 hr and 45 minutes on the phone and complete misery with the agent I ended my call and called back the next morning to go over the flights with a different agent. Each  puppy I had booked with agent the night before were a mess, wrong phone numbers, names and he had 2 different puppies going to two different destinations being received by the same person in different states. My contact information as well was incorrect including my very pertinent phone number. All 4 puppies were completely re booked taking 3 hours on the phone to get them right with a polite agent who was sympathetic to the errors.  Last night I arrived 3 hours early not 2 to make sure my 4 puppies were individually checked in. I brought 1 puppy in at a time, verified paperwork, made sure doors were secured and stickers for flights were attached. I arrived at 7:30 pm and I did not leave until 9:30 pm carefully checking in 4 puppies.  At 4:40 this morning I get a call from one of my clients in Philadelphia, PA that when he called to verify the flight was on time he was told there was no puppy and it was canceled. At 4:50 a.m my client in Pittsburgh called to say that her puppy never made the connecting flight and that they also did not see her in their records and as far as they knew the puppy never was booked. Her puppy was switched and was actually being sent to Baltimore MD.  I am writing this post not to find a resolution here on this forum but to hopefully help anyone else who may be shipping. I also have another breeder friend who in February shipped using United Airlines and her puppy as well was lost.  This is not just an accidental slip up, there is a very serious problem in shipping with United Airlines at this time and I strongly suggest if you have the option to ship with a different carrier to do so. I am not quite sure how this can get addressed from a management point of view as contact with supervisors or management only leads to apology but not action or resolution. With our hot season fast approaching please take extra caution in shipping your puppies. These types of shipping errors will result in grave conditions if puppies continue to be lost and unable to be tracked in flight. 
 

I shipped a puppy with united this past firday and all went well.