With the recent news surrounding Nala, the German Shepherd who escaped her crate this week at the Atlanta airport, we wanted to take this opportunity to shed some light on how seriously we take the responsibility of transporting the hundreds of thousands of animals entrusted to our care every year.
Last week we shared a memo with our cargo employees highlighting the special partnership between Delta and our customers who rely on us to transport their animals. We hope you’ll take a look at it and use this information to learn more about preparing to travel with your pet. More information is also available at http://bit.ly/ejXYJe.
To: Cargo Employees
From: Greg Mays, Managing Director, Global Cargo Operations
Date: Dec. 29, 2010
Every year, Delta transports hundreds of thousands of live animals. They range from crickets to animals bound for a zoo to our customers’ pets. They are all precious cargo and in many cases loved and adored members of our customers’ families.
Your efforts to keep pets safe during their time with us are admirable, with losses of pets during travel remaining extremely rare
With the recent kennel escape of Nala, a German Shepherd traveling through Atlanta, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind us all how important it is to partner with and take special care of our customers when shipping live animals.
We have a long list of restrictions on live animal shipments for this reason. Extremely high or low temperatures, inadequate kennels and improperly identified dogs by their breeders or owners are among our greatest concerns.
The better informed the customer, the less likely a pet is to escape or become ill during shipment. It is the responsibility of both Delta and the shipper to review our live animal policies each time we accept a pet shipment to ensure that we are all partnering to provide a safe travel experience for the animal.
When we have a pet escape, we are committed to doing what we can to help the owner. In the case of Nala, we have conducted our own thorough search around airport property and worked with local pet rescue organizations to set up a hotline where anyone in Atlanta can report tips to help find her. We also are offering a $1,000 reward to help support the search.
Many of us at Delta are pet owners and we know how saddening it is when a pet goes missing. Nala reminds us all to be sure we’re doing everything possible to help customers understand how to keep their pets safe during travel. More information is available online at http://bit.ly/ejXYJe and in the Knowledge Management system.
Thank you for your commitment to pet lovers everywhere and thank you for the work you do each and every day to take care of our customers.
Greg
January 4th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
This memo is so clearly a legalistic way to head off a lawsuit.
If this were about reminding employees what they need to do to keep this from happening it would be specific. This is for us to read and put it into record for the future potential juror. We want to know what is being done BY DELTA to make things better. PR is not going to fix anything.
It is clear Delta still does not get it. Astounding.
January 4th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
I’m surprised no on has bothred to comment on this. Sorry Greg, your reply to the Nala incident is a tad too corporate BS for me. The dog was found DEAD minutes from your airport; that poor dog regardless of whether Nala was a houdini master dog magician and can actually escape locked crates–that is a lame excuse and 100 percent inexcusable for your ground employees to not have some kind of ability to see a dog running across th tarmac? A large German Shepard escapes and no one see’s this poor baby running? Well some careless driver did and killed the dog another example of discusting disrespect –erratic driving. How well lit is the road by the airport? Reagardless–now after the fact, you offer to pay the airfare of the owner & donate 1,000.00 to a shelter? Big deal. What ar you going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Are your ground crew members trained or screened to even give a hoot about animals? I’m sick to my stomach over this and it just adds to all the other garbag of rude impatient employees which seem to be the MO of all ground and flight crew on Delta. I hope you don’t have a dog and imagine–Greg, havingto explain to your kids thatthe dog was hit by a car because daddy’s team didn’t pay enough attention to a large german shepard running around airport property. It’s such a pathetic situation. You guys are up there..The Michael Vic of the Not-so-Friendly Skies. Save the reward money for better crates and better handlers of thse precious vulnrable gifts from God that need us to survive. And don’t even get me started on the on-board under the seat crap for small pets. You want to get ahead of your competition? Try doing some startgic PR and marketing about how Delta is th eonly airline you want to fly with when your travelling with your family members inclkuding FIDO! Appeeal to people’s hearts vs. teir wallets and make a figgn ffort to show peopl you guys care about animals. Watch your sales soar! Make a damn effort to get thjose pets –every single one safely to their destination. I can’t even imagine what the animal cargo looks like. Hey there’s another brilliant marketing idea–be the first major airline that allows you to watch your pet during the flight on channel xyz. Just do something!! Cause-related marketing to nsur Nala didn’t die in vain.
January 5th, 2011 at 10:34 am
No comments on this one huh? Right
January 9th, 2011 at 5:48 am
Well…. round about every blog posts online don’t have much originality as I found on yours.. Just keep updating much useful information
January 14th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Really Delta?! $1,000 reward for a beloved pet? Is that the price you would put on your own dog? And now a $1,000 donation, what a lovely gesture and a slap in the face to every single person with a pet.