
Back when airlines awarded you miles based on distance traveled, it wasn’t strange to see passengers booking convoluted routes or flying unnecessarily to reach a new tier or keep their accounts active.
Unfortunately for Mittens, an 8-year-old Maine Coon cat, she clocked more than her fair share of miles she bargained for, flying across the “ditch” three times instead of once.
On January 12, Margo Neas and her son made a one-way trip from Christchurch, New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia to begin their new life. Accompanying them was Mittens, their pet cat.
As they were traveling internationally, they were unable to book a flight for their cat directly with an airline (Air New Zealand in this case), and required the services of an approved pet carrier company to handle transportation. Pets using services like this are also required to be flown in the aircraft cargo hold in a crate.
When they landed and cleared customs, Margo and her son waited for three hours at the collection area, only to find out that Mittens was never unloaded from the aircraft, and was actually on the return flight to Christchurch.
The ground handling team made contact with the pilots, asking them to turn the heat on in the cargo hold, as temperatures can easily dip below 10C in cruise.
When Mittens arrived in Christchurch, the pet handling company cleaned her and conducted a health check, before sending her back to Melbourne for the second time, covering the cost of the additional flight. Mittens was finally re-united with her owners the next morning after almost 11 hours of air travel time.
An investigation was launched to determine what led to the incident, but an Air New Zealand spokesperson told Neas that a wheelchair in the hold may have blocked the view of Mittens’ crate, resulting in their third party ground handlers not seeing it in the first place.
“He acknowledged my concerns and mentioned that if it were his family pet, he’d feel the same way,” Neas told NZ Herald.
“After the wheelchair was removed, staff handling the freight apparently didn’t realise there was anything else in the area,” she said.
Air New Zealand also promised to cover all costs associated with Mittens’ travel dilemma. According to Neas, she paid NZ $1,948 (US $1,100) to have Mittens flown to Melbourne.
I’m curious how this happened in the first place. Isn’t there a manifest to track the shipment of live animals? Shouldn’t the ground crew have noticed that an animal was not accounted for before the aircraft was reloaded for the next flight?
I’d like to hear in the comments how situations like this are normally dealt with and what could have been done to prevent something like this from happening.