[The_Judge]

Originally Posted by sugarandspicekidz

The airlines state that they cannot control and guarantee the cargo hold will stay warm enough for a 4 lb dog to survive. If they do not take off right away and are on the runway for a while the cargo hold gets hot or cold. If the weather outside is very hot or very cold, it may be the same in cargo hold. They state that they cannot be responsible for the temperature changes.

Absolutely untrue. Either you or the person you spoke with are not telling the truth. Working for the airline as long as I did, I have heard some good stories. One of them being that while a baggage handler was working in the bin of an aircraft, his silly co-workers locked him in and he got a trip to Chicago from Minneapolis. I guess knowing it was only an hour or so, they thought it was funny. He obviously made it okay and was not frozen to death or cooked on the way. Now the kicker, the airline tried to charge him for employee travel on the trip. Great airline, huh??

Anyway, back to the subject. Cargo holds are completely safe and humane. They are temperature controlled and when there is a problem with the system in the hold where they are kept, they are not allowed to fly. I was in the position that monitored this for a time and I made many a call to the mechanics asking if the particular MEL (minimum equipment list) that was on an aircraft allowed animals to fly or not.