Owner of Dog Flown to Japan By Mistake – “Likely to Sue United” to Ensure Others Don’t Experience the Same

by Adam

Irgo, a 10-year-old German Shepherd, returned home to his family in Kansas last night after mistakenly being sent on a trip to Tokyo by United. The family says that they will be looking to take steps to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else and had this to say to ABC / Good Morning America:

“Most likely, yes, we will,” Kansas resident Kara Swindle said when asked whether she will bring a case against United, which misrouted her dog, Irgo, on a 16-hour ordeal to Japan. I don’t want this to ever happen again,” she said. “I want to make sure that they actually do something to stop all of this and make sure that no one has to go through this. So far we haven’t talked about what is going to happen after. We’ve just wanted to get him home, now that he’s home and, hopefully, in the next week or so, we can finally talk to [United] about what’s going to be done to fix this.”

When asked about Irgo’s condition, the family shared that he’s a little restless but that he’ll relax when he gets back to their house. They were also happy that he wasn’t quarantined for two weeks, a possibility that they were warned about during the ordeal.

Previously…

KCTV reported that the family is in the process of moving from Oregon to Wichita and flew to Kansas City on Tuesday night.  When the parents and their 2 kids went to the United cargo facility to pick up Irgo, their 10 year-old German Shepherd, they found a Great Dane instead. The Great Dane was supposed to be in Tokyo, but Irgo was sent instead. Luckily, the dog was successfully located in Japan and after he’s checked by a veterinarian, he’ll be put on a flight back to Kansas.

The airline paid for the family to stay at a Marriott near the hotel until Irgo returned home, though they missed a signing in Wichita for their new home.

United has issued the following statement:

“An error occurred during connections in Denver for two pets sent to the wrong destinations. We have notified our customers that their pets have arrived safely and will arrange to return the pets to them as soon as possible. We apologize for this mistake and are following up with the vendor kennel where they were kept overnight to understand what happened.”

a dog sitting in the grass

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2 comments

james March 16, 2018 - 5:02 pm

To win a judgement in a lawsuit you have to have a monetary loss. If the dog had dies they could have sued for the value of the dog. No loss no lawsuit.

Lawsuits are deigned to make you whole again not to make you a profit. (Only the lawyers get to make a profit)

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Richard March 16, 2018 - 11:06 pm

Right. Animal pets are considered “property” in most states. Even the lady that recently had her dog die when UA her to stuff the dog in overhead. Dead dog = property loss = value) paid (with proof of course). Naturally, this and other cases will be cause for UA to lose significant customer loyalty and revenue when folks decide not to fly the not so “Friendly Skies”.

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