How much would you pay to know your pet will safely arrive from point A to point B? Delta hopes the answer is $50. Actually, Delta hopes the answer is $250 because it’ll cost you $200 to check your pet as luggage and another $50 to use the new pet tracking devices that they’re introducing tomorrow.
According to Bloomberg, Delta has teamed up with a tracking sensor company to allow pet owners to be in contact with their pet’s data (crate temperature, location, etc.) for the duration of the flight portion of the flight where cellular data can be used. Not exactly a great value for your $50, considering the device is unusable for the majority of every flight, but if you’re someone who likes to track Fido as he is loaded onto and off an airplane, this service is for you.
The article also notes that United is exploring a similar service, so this whole pet tracking thing may turn out to be a full-blown aviation trend. Sadly, pets are killed every year in the cargo holds of airplanes and on the ground if they escape. This service isn’t meant as a reaction to that fact, but Delta hopes it’ll ease the mind of its pet-owning passengers.
Quite honestly, I don’t fully understand this. If you’re already paying $200 for the animal to be on-board the flight, Delta should make as much of a commitment to your pet’s safety as it makes to you. By adding on a $50 fee to check out the position of your pet’s cage while on the ground, they just seem opportunistic to me. It reminds me of Uber’s $1 safe ride fee. Um, shouldn’t that just be part of the plan? Can I opt-out of the $1 fee if I like danger? At least this $50 pet monitoring fee is voluntary. I’m just not sure who’s going to volunteer to partake in it.
As of 4/1, the new GPS pet monitoring service will be available in ten markets around the US. Will you be one of the people using this service? Justify your pet love in the comments (ed. note: link may be NSFW if you consider Madonna music videos as such). Or just post descriptions of the cutest thing your pet did today. You can do whatever you’d like.
my dogs are like my kids. I would not put my kids in the cargo hold so my dogs aren’t going in the cargo hold either. If they can’t fly in the cabin with me I’m not going to be flying
. I’d be in the car driving cross. Country.
so pay an extra $50 to increase the changes the airline will do its job properly ?
That’s pretty much what it sounds like, Mike. Worth it?