Yeah, children up to age, oh, ten or so definitely should be required to be checked into cargo.
I’ll take a screaming baby over the stupid airplane drunks that you run into every so often.
Because it’s rare on a transatlantic flight, because most people will not pay it.
What is it that people are expecting airlines to do, I wonder? Have a dedicated pets portion of the main cabin, on the chance that people will pay to use it? And make that cheap, if not actually free? Can kids fly free, too, if they can be stuffed in the overhead bin?
Interesting data point:
Aircraft cabins are typically pressurized to only 8000 ft above sea level. Humans usually tolerate the suddenly thinner air, but I wonder how many dogs died simply because their physiology could not accommodate a rapid change in air pressure. It can actually have dramatic effects, if you’ve ever experimented with a plastic water bottle during a flight.
I kind of agree with a lot of this, but you’ve directly contradicted your previous post which is the one I was replying to. You know, that somewhat simplistic assertion that the problem would be solved if only pet owners were willing to pay.
Many of us do. At minimum, I’d hoped that my £3000 would have bought a reasonable level of care and attention on the part of the airline and cargo company. But as one of our dogs spent most of the next two days after the flight guarding his water bowl, I suspect we got staff who couldn’t be bothered to change an empty water bottle.
Yeah Scott you tried to claim the owners are being cheap; then we proved what 2k for a bunny, more for crocs, 3x the cost off the human for another pet… maybe some are trying to get a free ride but I suspect many just want their pets to survive. The best way to make sure that happens is to have them next to you.
In practice, most pet owners are not willing to pay what it would cost; at least, not enough of them are to produce a working business model for the airlines. You can’t really believe your own experience is the norm. The norm is people claiming that their dogs and cats are emotional support animals so they can ride for free.
That some people will pay doesn’t mean all will pay, or even that most will pay. Shipping commercial animals isn’t the same problem as everyone wanting to take their pets on a plane when they travel. And if most will not pay the actual cost of providing what amounts to a seat space to a pet — another person’s fare, at least — then there’s no business model the airlines can adopt.
Those were not all commercial examples.
You have no proof that people will not pay. You have examples, right here, from real life people who traveled with pets who did pay. How is it you are still insisting that an industry that is flush, flush with people paying sometimes extreme amounts for their pets, not including their actual vet care, that pet owners will not pay?
There were, what, three examples? I assume (perhaps wrongly) that shipping giant crocodiles from Australia is a commercial endeavor. The giant bunny example was clearly a commercial example. The third example was Mark, which was personal. How many people are voluntarily paying three times the cost of a plane seat for a person to ship their pets? I doubt there are very many.
Isn’t this a conversation about airlines trying to crack down on people claiming their pets are emotional support animals rather than pets traveling with them, so they can avoid the nominal pet fee? If they won’t pay $100, I doubt those people are going to pay $500 or $1200. That doesn’t mean that no one will pay; but the question is, will enough pay to make a solution feasible for the airlines?
Well you forgot the birds. He had three of them, and that was not going to be free.
It is not clear that the motivation is fiscal. It could easily be: if you have your pet in your lap or next to your seat they are going to survive the trip.
You have no proof of that. People are paying those fees, today.
The airlines are perennially desperate for additional revenue. If there was a way to make money by charging the appropriate fee — the cost of a passenger seat on the flight, or perhaps more — for people’s pets to fly with them, they would absolutely be doing that. That they are not makes me think they don’t think enough people are willing pay to make the solution viable. That’s good enough for me. I don’t like the airlines — it’s mostly a shitty service, at least within the US — but I don’t doubt they know something about what their customers are willing to pay.
Is that so?
You’re older than me right? How many times in your lifetime has this industry needed help, actually got it even. I mean, this is not an industry that operates in the typical constraints that many of the others do.
… But your attempt to explain the motivations of the airlines themselves does nothing to explain the motivations of the pet owners.
Okay.
Another factor is:
Cost of pet sitter = $$$
Cost of flight for “emotional support pet” = free
Cost of special flight for pet (like that Pet Air place) = $$$$
Serious question; is it that most people are not willing or not wanting? There’s a distinct difference wherein resides whether a decent business model could be found or not.
I dunno. I think a business that found a way to charge you money for the privilege of choosing your seat early, would probably have found a way to charge you for a decent pet experience, if they thought enough people would pay to make the service viable. They could be wrong, I suppose.
Yes, a lot of people are going to support free with those alternatives. And they’re not going to like what they get as a result. Which is where we started.
One airline says they flew more emotional support and service animals than the number of service animals totaled in the country.
Delta—says it flew 250,000 emotional support and service animals in its cabins. But it’s estimated there are fewer than 200,000 real service dogs in the entire country.
ACAA actually made some changes, some of which makes it line up more with ADA. But…
These changes to the ACAA artfully remove this problem without unduly burdening the disabled, but they do nothing to address the root cause: there remains no good way to fly with our pets.
UK regulator looking at COVID refunds
AA throwing in the towel on support animals.