United Airlines in the Dog House; Pauses PetSafe Program
On March 20, United Airlines announced the temporary suspension of its PetSafe program for transporting animals in cargo, pending a program review to be completed by May 1.

“We take full responsibility and are deeply sorry for this tragic accident,” the airline said in a statement. In an effort to prevent such an incident from happening again, the airline added that, by April, it would start issuing bright-colored tags for pet-carriers to “further help our flight attendants identify pets in-cabin.”

In another incident that same week, a mix-up led United to put a family’s German shepherd on a flight to Japan instead of Kansas City (MCI). When they went to pick up their pet, they were given the Great Dane that was supposed to fly to Japan. And, in a third incident, a United flight from Newark (EWR) to St. Louis (STL) was diverted to Akron, Ohio, (AKC) so a dog mistakenly loaded onto the flight could be delivered to its owner.

More Travelers in Airports — And in the Sky
If you think airports and airplanes are more crowded, you’re right. According to Airports Council International World, during 2017 there was a 6.4 percent increase in passenger volume across the world’s airports, with growth up above 6 percent for the third year in a row. “Global travel and tourism remained irrepressible,” notes ACI. “With several years of continued robust growth, passenger traffic surpassed the 8.2 billion marks in 2017.”

What’s So Funny?
Norwegian Airlines, launching flights between Chicago (ORD) and London (LGW) and between Austin (AUS) and London this month, added a female-focused comedy channel to its in-flight entertainment line-up on all its Dreamliner flights. The programming comes from the online comedy platform PYPO (Put Your Pretty On) and debuted with a line-up of seven comedy sketches that will be updated and expanded later this year. More details here.