On a recent flight from Atlanta to Oklahoma City, a passenger had to deplane a Delta flight due to 2 pet cats. According to the family, the husband is severely allergic to cats and when they told the flight attendants that he couldn’t fly with the cats, they were shocked that the cats took priority over the allergy. Read below as reported by 11alive.com and let us know what you think about this story?
Did Delta Prioritize Cats Over A Passenger?
As reported by 11alive.com
A family is furious after they said Delta Air Lines prioritized cats over them.
“You chose cats over a human life, and that’s appalling to me,” Jackie Reckline said.
Reckine said her husband has a severe cat allergy and she thought it should be a no-brainer that the health of a human passenger gets priority over two cats.
“My husband will go in to anaphylactic shock in the air,” she said. “It was almost a 3 hour flight. He can’t stay on board if the cats are going to be on board.”
Reckline said the carriers didn’t fit under the seat, so the flight attendants cleared out an area in the front storage closet, very close to their seats.
Her husband got up and told the flight attendants he would have to get off the plane. She said one of the flight attendants made a joke about his decision before takeoff, welcoming the cats on board.
Delta provided 11Alive with the following statement:
“The comfort and safety of every customer who flies Delta is our top priority and we work hard to ensure those with allergies are well taken care of. We have reached out directly to this customer to better understand his and his family’s experience and apologize for the inconvenience this situation may have caused.â€
Bottom Line
What do you think? Should the person with the allergy or the cats have to get off the plane in this situation?
HT:Â 11alive.com
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Eat some peanuts. It cancels out the cat issue.
I’d say the person with the medical issue should change planes. If you have a person with a specialized medical problem they should be accommodated on the next possible flight, no charge and maybe even some cash or miles to soften the delay. Cats and dogs might be on the plane at any given time, you know this. Airlines do this (allow animals on board). If your allergy meds won’t control the issue, that is unfortunate but the best the airline can do is move you to the next cat-free flight. The cats didn’t do anything and weren’t having the problem, you were. There is no such thing as a guaranteed cat-free or dog-free flight. Until someone invents such an airline (Pet-free, allergy-free, kid-free!) there will be these issues.
I totally agree with Lara S. And the claim of the wife to say
“My husband will go in to anaphylactic shock in the air,”
Is TOTALLY an attempt to make it out to be a bigger deal. There has NEVER been an actual documented case of a feline or canine allergy causing anaphylactic shock from being in the same room, airplane, or even just touching. Could you image if that REALLY was the case? How many people have cat hair on their clothes that we come in contact to every day, etc? Fake News!