Supermodel Maggie Rizer is mourning the death of one of her Golden Retrievers, Beatrice after the 2 year old pup died in cargo, while being transported back to San Francisco from Upstate New York.
The model, who was traveling with her husband and son, claims the dog who traveled with one of her other dogs was in perfect health and blames United Airways for the death due to negligence and poor traveling conditions. In fact the dog, after a thorough necropsy, was said to have died of heat stroke, which is strange considering the airlines assure you that your animals are safe and comfortable when flying…
“Whatever thread of trust remained between us and United broke and we then insisted that she be returned to us for our own autopsy…Over the next two hours the supervisor’s lie unraveled as it became clear that Bea was right behind a closed door the whole time and he had been discussing how to handle the potential liability with his boss who had left and sticking to the divert and stall tactic that they had been taught,” Rizer charges.
After a six-hour drive to New York City to avoid a connecting flight that could potentially stress or separate their dogs, she says she paid the airline $1,800 in addition to their plane tickets to ensure their pets’ safety as passengers.
There have been lots of well-publicized stories about dogs and cats either dying or getting lost after plane flights. Most people will not fly if the animal can’t go on the plane with them, and it doesn’t seem like airlines are going out of their way to better the ride for these poor animals.
You trust an airline to safely transport a dog on the flight and when the animal dies they send you a refund of your expenses? There is no amount of money that can bring back a family pet. The airline needs to be held accountable. First and foremost, a criminal investigation needs to be conducted, then Ms. Rizer should pursue a civil complaint against them. It’s the only way to send a message to this company, and I’m sure United Airways will experience a large hit in sales after an incident such as this.
Despite her anger the model, married to an IBM heir, Alex Mehran, writes that she doesn’t plan to file a lawsuit or become an advocate against the airline
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Writes the model in a her personal web post:
‘I am writing this to help make people aware that airlines are incapable of ensuring the safety of our pets. All it takes is for one employee to not follow the proper procedure and then like me, your dog is dead.’
And then there was these 2 comments that caught my eye from the many respondents on Maggie’s blog:
I am so sorry for your loss. My heart hurts just reading this, I can only imagine how you feel. And just for the record, you are a much better person than I am because I would have absolutely written this post with the sole intention of trying to negatively impact United’s business as much as possible. And you should absolutely sue them. How is an animals life worth less than a humans? Especially if there is human negligence involved. There is definitely something shady going on here.
This disgusts me. They should take responsibility fully. As for the moron that just said “one of them is dead” should be FIRED, and if it was ME he said that, to his PHONE WOULD BE SHOVED DOWN HIS FUCKING THROAT. I am in the middle of planning a trip, and UNITED will NOT be my choice of airline EVER. so sorry for your loss.
