Hi all!
 
Very appreciative of the responses so far!  Very friendly list going here.
Here's the current situation:
 
First, I got one detail wrong, Steve did not yet pay the ferret fee on
Continental, just the regular ticket.  That probably makes it more difficult
for him to get his money back.  However, he is aware of two current
possibilities:
 
1) USAir said that they would fly the ferrets alone for $64/each, and
they would meet up with Steve at the airport in Phoenix.  He would have
to bring the ferrets about an hour early to the departure airport (an
hour before his Continental flight) and USAir would put them in carrels
and fly them escorted.  This seems like a good option, as long as they
don't lose them :-) They seemed to want to handle each ferret as a
separate entity, rather than together.
 
2) Continental does allow a number of small animals to be taken in the
cabin in an under-seat carrier: small cats, gerbils, hamsters, etc.  But
not ferrets (the discrimination continues...).  One possible gamble Steve
could take is to just bring the ferrets in the carrier and just go for it
and see if anyone really checks.  It will be pretty obvious that there
are some small animals in the plastic carrier, so the question is will
the inspector really open it up to see what _kind_ of animals?  I
honestly have no idea -- does anyone here have any experiences that they
might be able to draw a guess from?
 
That's it for now...again, thanks for all the responses so far!
 
-Aaron
[Posted in FML issue 1266]