Southwest Airlines employees kicked a woman off a plane when her newborn puppy whined in the carrier and she petted the pup from outside to comfort him.
A video posted last week showed a new pet owner being escorted off a flight from Colorado Springs to California after she got into a fight with flight attendants for touching her new puppy.
Sara Price, another passenger who posted a video on TikTok, said Sitka, the eight-week-old puppy, was crying softly and the unnamed owner gave him a pet from outside the carrier.
According to Peoplethe woman was told ‘that carrier must be completely zipped up and the dog must be under the seat’, rules that she followed.
And before they even boarded, a woman working for Southwest checking boarding passes told the pet owner, “If you can’t keep that dog still, you might not be able to fly.”
A video posted last week showed a new pet owner being escorted off a flight from Colorado Springs to California after she got into a fight with flight attendants for touching her new puppy.
Sara Price, another passenger who posted a video on TikTok, said Sitka, the eight-week-old puppy, was crying softly and the unnamed owner gave him a pet from outside the carrier
The carrier was completely zipped up and according to Sara she was just petting her puppy through the mesh outside.
Sara said in her video caption: ‘The puppy was whining a bit and the flight attendant who boarded everyone walked up to her and said, ‘If your (dog) isn’t quiet, you might not be able to fly.’ She puts her hand in the soft carrier and pets the puppy. It stopped whining.
“We board the plane and she has the carrier on her lap and is still petting the puppy, when the same flight attendant came up and said the carrier needed to be completely zipped up and placed under the seat.
“Everyone around us was like, ‘What’s going on here!?'”
Sara said the dog gave a “soft whine,” so the woman “leaned over and started petting him from the outside of the carrier, but right by the mesh.”
In the video, which has gone viral online, the owner can be heard calling the flight attendant “a mean person.”
Southwest said in a statement: “Our associates are trained to ensure customers follow protocol, and in this situation and after the customer repeatedly refused to follow our crew’s instructions, the decision was made to remove the disruptive passenger from the aircraft.” let go’
She added: ‘All the attendants got into a group at the front of the plane and decided we needed to go back to the gate and she needed to be removed from the flight.’
In the clip, which has gone viral online, the owner can be heard calling the flight attendant “a mean person.”
She also says she will “never fly to Southwest again.”
Meanwhile, passengers around the owner appeared to express their support, saying “this is ridiculous.”
Sara’s husband, who was sitting with her, tells the owner, “It’s not like you even walked the dog, you were petting it.”
Then he says to the steward, “You should be ashamed.”
According to the IndependentThe couple who filmed the incident were also removed from the flight due to their ‘attitude’.
Sitka, the eight-week-old puppy, whined softly during the trip
A handful of other passengers also got off the plane in protest.
Sara and her husband were refunded for their tickets, but the dog owner was not.
Southwest said in a statement: “We are aware of the videos and our initial reports indicate that the customer would not comply with keeping her dog’s kennel closed, which is our policy.
“Our staff are trained to ensure customers follow protocol, and in this situation and after the customer repeatedly refused to follow our crew’s instructions, the decision was made to eject the disruptive passenger from the aircraft.”
After watching the video, one person said to Sara, “Thank you for standing up for her.”
Another said: ‘I would like to pet my dog and check if everything is okay.’