There is now no domestic carrier who will let you take your ferret in
the cabin with you. The following information I received first hand
from a Delta Gate Agent who nearly did not let me board a Philadelphia
to Miami Delta flight on October 25th with a hob I had just picked up
at Dooktoberfest the night before in Maryland. I had a pet reservation,
checked in at the baggage desk to pay my extra 150 fee, and passed
TSA security ok, only to be stopped during boarding . The Agent was a
former ferret owner and had just attended employee merger meetings.
Delta merged with Northwestern and they decided to harmonize their
rules and discontinued ferrets in the cabin on November 1st adopting
the Northwest rule (which is odd because Delta is the purchasing
parent). They still allow a vareity of animals in cabin but no ferrets.

It's sad, I was hoping to get our new Yogi and our 8yo hob Charlie a
jill to play with from Pennsylvania in Spring and fly back as before
but unless we start a letter writing campaign we now can only do air
cargo. I am an American Airlines, Platnium elite frequent flyer becuase
I fly weekly for travel as a consultant depending on where my client
is, this was my first experience with Delta in over a decade. If it
had not been for the ferret permitted policy I wouldn't have spent
$450 RT on airfare plus the $150 charge. For a seemingly small rule
simplification, they are losing $750 in revenue this spring from me,
and I am by no means a ferret show goer. On the bigger margin, if they
contuned to provide a better or different service than Amercian and
United, maybe I would be spending my $20,000 or so in travel annually
on their planes instead of AA.

As it was, during the flight Yogi slept in his carrier under the seat,
never woke and even during gate change in Atlanta was not a problemw
hile I tryied to "walk" him in the men's room to get him to go (no
access to outside is possible without exiting all security, even the
smoking lounges are indoors there.)

To write Delta and ask them to go back to old policy this address was
used 4 years ago in an AFA letter writing campaign that worked try
this link:

http://www.ferret.org/news/06-july-delta.html

Delta Airlines
Attention: Executive Vice President of Sales and Customer Care.
P.O. Box 20980
Dept. 980
Atlanta, GA 30320-2980

[Posted in FML 6169]