Fly the Friendly Skies

Does United still use that slogan? Well, whether they do or not doesn't matter, we're flying United Airlines from DFW to Dulles to Geneva, Switzerland. You may ask, why are you going to Switzerland and not France? Well the answer to your question lies in a 21 pound ball of cuteness and annoyance. Most airlines have restrictions on dog weights in the cabin, and we can't check Emma because of her flat little face. American Airlines restricts cabin dogs to 20 pounds (Emma weighs too much). Delta doesn't seem to know if French Bulldogs are allowed on their airline at all (we called and the three people I talked to all had different answers). Most of the European carriers restrict dogs in the cabin to 8 kilos (about 17 pounds). We can't fly any airline that will bring us through Heathrow because of quarantine issues. Finally, Continental won't allow dogs in the cabin on any transatlantic flights. United Airlines doesn't have a weight restriction, just a size restriction in inches, which Emma meets, so United it was, however, there was just one more problem.

United and Continental are in the midst of a merger, but they are not completely merged yet. This means that United will sell us a ticket on Continental and call it a United flight even though it is operated by Continental. The problem with this is that Continental's pet policy will still apply. Therefore, we had to find a United flight that was operated by United so Emma could get on. This posed two more problems, almost all United flights out of DFW are operated by Continental, and flying into France was around $1,200 per person. We thought we might have to catch a Southwest flight to Chicago to get a United flight operated by United into Paris. After hours of searching we finally decided to look for flights into Geneva, afterall it's only an hour and a half drive from Lyon. Lo and behold, there is one flight leaving at around noon from DFW to Dulles to Geneva, so we jumped on it and we're going to Switzerland. You've gotta love the Swiss, except for that tacitly supporting Hitler thing.