More pets died on United flights in 2016

Dogs traveling by airplane. Boxes with live animals at the airport.
By Hannah Edensor


If you thought things couldn’t get much worse for United, then you’re about to be sorely disappointed.

United Airlines – now renowned for dragging a passenger off a flight, pinning the blame on him, then offering weak apologies two days too late – now has another tragic accolade to add to the mix.

It didn’t look pretty on Reddit either, where passengers shared some of their worst United experiences.

Figures from last year show the airline had the worst record when it came to pet transportation.

Translation – more pets died, were injured and were lost on United flights than with its major competitors.

The statistics from The Department of Transportation re-emerged this week, per Metro UK, after the airline was criticised for forcibly removing a passenger from a plane.

Last year nine pets died on United planes and four were injured.

Delta, which was second on the list, saw five pets die and another five injured.

But by comparison, United transported more pets than its rivals, so has a higher probability of this happening anyway. United handled 109,149 in 2016.

Delta only handled 81,070 pets in the same year. That means percentage-wise both of their ‘pet incidences’ were around the same.

A United spokesperson defended its record of transporting pets.

“We have some of the best facilities for taking care of customer pets,” they told Business Insider.

“We keep customers informed and consider pets customers as well because we understand pets are part of our customers’ family.”

 

 

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