A parrot sprung from its cage, a cat that suffered emotional trauma from riding a conveyer belt to the baggage area, a dog that shivered in an unheated cargo hold. But no escaped snakes on a plane.
Such are the traveling travails of airline customers' pets, whose inflight mishaps now have to be reported by US airlines under legislation that was pushed by animal-rights activists.
Since June 2005, airlines have reported only 74 pet incidents, involving roughly just 0.01 percent of all animals carried in cargo holds during that period, a review of reports filed at the US Transportation Department found.
When activists were pushing for the disclosure rules in the 1990s, they widely claimed US airlines were losing or killing up to 5,000 pets a year. But the filed reports show the toll is fewer than 50 dogs and cats. The explanation? Animal rights groups had extrapolated the 5,000 figure from industry claims that 99 percent or more of the estimated 500,000 animals that ride in airplane cargo holds each year make it to their destination safely.
Of the 74 reported pet incidents reviewed by the Globe, almost all involved defective kennels that allowed animals to escape, often to be run over by tarmac baggage trains, or animals that were old or sick and died in flight or soon after.
American Airlines, the world's biggest airline, said it is almost never at fault when something happens to a pet on one of its planes.
"In the few cases where there has been an issue, routine autopsies of the animals have almost always shown some sort of pre-existing medical condition that the owner did not know about or did not disclose to us," the airline said . American estimates it carries 200,000 pets annually, half in cargo holds and half in carry-on kennels .
The incidents as reported include 32 dogs found dead in intact kennels after their flights landed, 10 cats that disappeared from unlatched kennels, 10 dogs who injured themselves trying to chew their way out of a kennel, and the parrot, which escaped when a Honolulu airport employee dropped its cage.
Despite the relatively few problems, activists said airlines have not made it safer for pets to travel.
Lisa Weisberg, senior vice president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said, "The original intent of the legislation that we spearheaded was not that they could continue to transport animals" in conditions the society thinks are hazardous "if they just filled out more paperwork. We're trying to make travel safer for companion animals."
Weisberg would not comment on the vast gulf between reports and the 5,000-animal projection. But she said she fears airlines may be under-reporting incidents and noted that the 5,000-animal projection included not just passengers' pets but all kinds of creatures carried on planes, such as laboratory animals and pets being shipped as cargo by breeders.
Among pet owners, Ken McAuley didn't think twice about having his four-year-old golden retriever, Lily, travel in the cargo hold of a flight last Friday from Boston to Orlando. "It's pressurized up there, and everything's very easy in terms of dealing with the airlines," said McAuley, a retiree who divides his time between Nantucket and Florida. "Her first trip was last year. She took it well."
But Neil Bergquist , a frequent-flying pharmaceutical industry consultant from Brighton, has so far declined to bring his year-old domestic short-hair cat named Earl on holiday trips. "I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to put him in the hold of a plane. It just seems inhumane."
Airlines are not required to report human deaths or injuries in flight unless caused by an accident or crash, said a Transportation Department spokesman, Bill Mosley .
Just six of the pet incidents involved mishandling by airline or airport employees. Among the serious errors: US Airways baggage workers in Philadelphia erroneously loaded a dog into an unheated section of the cargo hold on a transcontinental flight in August 2005.
"The animal arrived in San Diego very cold and shivering, but otherwise unharmed," the airline reported. The employees were later ordered to undergo retraining.
Also, Frontier Airlines baggage workers in Atlanta in May 2005 put a kennel containing a Cornish Rex cat named Mr. Baby on a conveyor belt instead of carrying it to the baggage claim, as airline rules require. "The cat suffered emotional trauma and was injured. Injuries included several broken nails and a cut on the nose," Frontier reported, adding that the employee was disciplined for "bad judgment" and received retraining.
Some of the more bizarre incidents: a pet rat that died en route from Hawaii to McAllen, Texas, and a cat killed in flight by a dog that escaped its kennel during a Denver-Seattle Alaska Airlines flight, rampaged through the cargo hold, and broke into the cat's kennel. The airline banned the dog's owner from flying on its planes for a year after the May 2005 incident.
Airlines typically charge $45 to $200 per checked kennel, depending on size. To protect pets, though, airlines typically won't transport them as cargo if temperatures will be higher than 85 degrees or lower than 45 in any city on the passengers' itinerary. Guidelines are even more restrictive for temperature-sensitive short-nosed dog breeds such as Boston terriers, Boxers, and Shih Tzus.
Most airlines allow passengers to bring pets on board, subject to varying limits, as long as kennels are no bigger than standard carry-on baggage.
Southwest Airlines doesn't allow pets in either cargo or on-board kennels. The carriers wants to avoid kennel-handling delays on the grounds they could disrupt its quick-turnaround business model, said a spokeswoman, Brandy King .
"We love our pets, but we felt it was more important to be in a position to offer low fares for our two-legged customers," said a spokeswoman, Jenny Dervin .
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com. 
