Baggage handlers' latest gaffe: Dog tossed aboard jet

Saturday night, just a day after Alaska Airlines increased its monitoring of ramp operations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a baggage worker threw a crate containing a border collie into the cargo hold of a plane instead of using a conveyor belt.

The dog's owner, Lisa Ross of Woodinville, was watching from inside the terminal around 11 p.m. when a ramp worker picked up the crate holding her 40-pound dog, Jace, tipped it at a 45-degree angle and then heaved it over his head into the jet.

The baggage worker is an employee of Menzies Aviation, an Alaska contractor blamed for damaging two Alaska Airlines jets on the ground at Sea-Tac in the past three weeks. As a result of those earlier incidents, Menzies said it was flying 25 supervisors to Seattle to work alongside Menzies' local workers to improve the operation. Also, Alaska said Friday it was assigning six extra Alaska Airlines employees to supervise ramp operations for each shift.

But Ross saw no supervisors.

"My dog was basically being slammed from level to 45 degrees and projected into the plane," Ross said. "It was just horrifying to see."

The worker then walked to Ross' other dog, an Australian shepherd named Tucker, and tried to lift his crate but couldn't, Ross said. Workers used a belt loader for the 50-pound dog, according to Ross and an Alaska incident report.

Ross complained to an Alaska gate agent, who went down to the tarmac and spoke with the workers. They admitted throwing a dog but said it was a different one, Ross said. She noted that she uses brightly colored crates so she can spot her dogs when she flies. She also puts cards with the dogs' pictures on each crate to make sure workers know what they are moving.

After Ross complained, her dogs were unloaded and she postponed her flight until today. She had been on her way to a dog competition in Florida. She's now taking only Tucker because she thinks he's too heavy to be thrown.

While Alaska has increased its supervision of Menzies employees, the six Alaska employees on duty each shift must cover 26 gates, said Amanda Tobin, an Alaska spokeswoman.

Tobin said the airline is investigating the incident and has communicated its concern to senior managers at Menzies. The airline transports more than 35,000 pets a year, she said.

A Menzies employee in the company's Seattle office referred all questions to a London-based Menzies spokesman. Phone calls to that spokesman were not returned.

This week, four senior executives with Menzies are leading a 90-day review of the contractor's operations at Sea-Tac. In May, Alaska said it would save $13.7 million a year by outsourcing the Sea-Tac baggage work to Menzies.

An Alaska supervisor told Ross that the airline would pay for any veterinarian bills, according to the Alaska incident report. "I do not know why the ramp agents didn't use a belt loader when boarding the first dog except they must of [sic] been in a hurry," the supervisor wrote in the report.

Ross said Jace was shaking and panting and afraid to go back into his crate when she unloaded him, but he seems to be uninjured. Her concern now is how well he will travel in the future, she said.

"I just don't want it to happen again."

Cheryl Phillips: 206-464-2411 or cphillips@seattletimes.com