This is Scruffy the dog. Last week his human, Evelyn, wrote to us about her problems with Delta shipping Scruffy as cargo instead of baggage, not letting her know where he was, and charging an extra $391 at the airport to fly 50-pound Scruffy from New York to Los Angeles. In her letter to Delta, Evelyn said that she would be informing everyone she knows not to use Delta, since it is “most certainly neither a safe nor convenient carrier for pets.” Now, at least, Delta has explained to Evelyn what went wrong, and she’ll be receiving a refund for the full $591 in dog-shipping fees. It doesn’t sound like Evelyn and Scruffy are in a hurry to fly Delta again soon, though.

Evelyn sent us this update:

Scruffy is happy and energetic as ever and after my post went up, a supervisor from Delta Cargo called. We’ve been playing phone tag for the past week, but I spoke with him today.

He explained that he spoke with the employees at Delta Cargo I encountered and looked through the record of our calls to Delta to get to the bottom of the problems. The short version: the incorrect cost was due to Delta Cargo’s not communicating with Delta’s reservations, and the incorrect info on Scruffy’s whereabouts after the flight was due to there being another dog on the plane that was checked in as luggage and scheduled to be brought out, which the employees at LAX assumed was Scruffy, without looking into it.

Not terribly satisfying answers, but the caller was very polite and apologetic. Also, he said that I should receive a $591 check in the next few days to refund Scruffy’s travel. Fingers crossed it actually shows up.

In any case, thank you so much for posting Scruff’s saga. I’m confident I wouldn’t have heard from Delta otherwise.

You’re welcome! We at Consumerist hate overcharging and love pets, so we were happy to help.

PREVIOUSLY:
Delta Charges Extra $391 To Fly Your Dog, Then Misplaces Him
What’s The Best Airline For Your Pet To Travel?

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