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Qantas: Service Dogs Not Allowed
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Qantas should be ashamed of themselves. As one of the world’s premier airlines, better corporate behaviour is expected. Qantas refused passage for three service dogs from Los Angeles to Auckland:
“Three Waikato families are facing a bill of $33,000 after three dogs being brought to New Zealand to help autistic patients were banned from a Qantas flight in Los Angeles.
The families had spent two years raising funds to bring the dogs to New Zealand.”
link: $33K bill after dogs banned from flight
Qantas, frame this as an unfortunate error in communication and correct this mistake.
Catherine Forsythe
5 Comments
Arden
August 10th, 2008
at 9:17am
This is horrible but I do have a question. Why didn’t the person travelling with the dogs have the proper papers to say they were service dogs? If she didn’t have them with her then that is a screwup of the training agency and the clients should not have to pay.
Boxer Dog Forum
August 10th, 2008
at 9:31am
what a PR nightmare
Judy Vorfeld
August 10th, 2008
at 9:51pm
Karen Shirk, the executive director of 4 Paws for Ability, http://www.4pawsforability.org, did indeed have the required paperwork, and the dogs went through fulfilling medical requirements, as well. All the paperwork was given to the originating airline, American Airlines.
There are a number of links to the story, but the ones from NZ newspapers are the best, especially one of the articles from Waikato. If you’ll go to http://www.4pawsforability.org/news-events.html - you’ll find these links.
I’m the webmaster. Trust me, this agency is highly responsible and accountable.
Marie
February 15th, 2009
at 11:21pm
I have a great deal of sympathy for Qantas (and especially the families receiving the dogs) in this case as they were only following New Zealand law - which does not recognise these dogs as service dogs.
No matter how well trained they are - or how much paperwork they had - they are not recognised as working dogs under New Zealand law.
It is also mind boggling that these dogs have not had any kind of seperation training - even guide dogs travel in the cargo hold on a large number of flights internationally, and any responsible trainer will consider the welfare of the dog and train them in a way that prepares them for those times when they must be seperated from their trainer.
From the articles that have been published, if the dogs had travelled in the hold of the plane then there would have been no extra cost to the family, and the dogs would not have suffered.
Ultimately the cost should fall on 4 Paws for Ability as they were the ones who were flying the dogs, and they are the ones who refused to let the dogs travel in the cargo area where many other service/assistance dogs travel when on domestic and international flights.
dolores ruckert
July 27th, 2009
at 9:30pm
service dogs like service people deserve very special consideration. If it were not for them our life would not be so
great. we wouldn’t be flying off on vacation without someone
fighting for us and as for service dogs, get a grip! where’s the humanity? There’s a time we scrape for money and a time when money has nothing to do with what is happening.
money is supposed to make us feel good, but how can it when
we use it so selfishly.