United Airlines Is Being Held Responsible For Killing A Giant Pet Rabbit

Just when United thought they were in the clear, something else terrible happens.

(Though they probably should be grateful this happened after Easter. The headlines of “United Killed The Easter Bunny” would have been too easy.)

According to this, a woman from the UK named Annette Edwards was traveling on a United flight from London to Chicago. She has brought her pet rabbit, Simon, with her on the trip. Now, Simon was a three-foot giant continental rabbit and was possibly on track to break the world record for largest rabbit, which is currently held by his father, Darius (pictured above), at 4’4″. Annette, who breeds large rabbits, was delivering Simon to a buyer in the Chicago area.

Just because I think he’s cute, here’s a picture of Simon –

But now Simon will never get to break that record. Because when the flight landed in Chicago and Simon was taken to a storage room at the airport and that’s where he died. And no one seems to know why, because Simon was healthy and happy before and during the flight –

Annette said: ‘What I cannot understand is if he was alright when he landed in Chicago what has happened between then and them finding him dead after he’d been checked on a couple of times?
‘I need some answers before we send anyone else on a plane again. I was going to keep Simon but because I’ve got such a good relationship with the buyer I knew he’s going to have a good home so I was prepared to let Simon go.
‘Simon was a stunning boy with black fur and blue eyes and the gentleman wanted a boy he could show off which was going to be so nice for Simon.
‘I took him for a full health check at the vets on the day of his flight on the 19th of April. He went for his health check at around 6:15pm he left me around quarter past nine.
‘He looked so happy at the vets, hopping about everywhere. He had his temperature taken, heart checked and a thorough going over which was all fine.

When I first saw this story and thought that Simon was simply Annette’s pet, that was bad enough (I know I’d be heartbroken if I was traveling with a beloved pet and it died during the trip). But the fact that she was delivering him to a buyer and this is part of her business – that’s just an extra slap in the face. And if it turns out this was because of something United did, she has all kinds of grounds to sue the airline.

Which, given the bad publicity United’s had in the past month, is something the company can’t really afford right now.

I guess we can add a new United motto: “Fly United! We’ll beat you up AND kill your pets!”