El Al Did it again...

[Etienne]

26 august 2004:

During a second check (allthough the carrier was already checked by Elal personel) again a cat escaped and disapeared through check in desk 85 in
endless depths of Ben-Gurion (Tel-Aviv) Airport.

It all started when nine year old Daniel Shalom that for the first time went to fly by himself, from Tel Aviv (Israel) to family in Brussels (Belgium).

To coop with the fact that he would have to live in a new courty while his parents still had to sell their Israeli home, the family decided that they would send the child's cat together with him.

After nine year old Daniel had his bags and the cats cage checked(while his dad held the cat) everything was found okay, and the child went with the ground stewardess that would deliver him to the plane.

For some reason passport-security wanted to do another check (despite of the yellow label that the cage was allready checked) of the cage and asked the child to hold the 7 kilo cat.

The cat escaped from the nine year old Daniel to go from the check point down the stairs, and then 500 meter further disapeared between the belts where the suitcases are taken away.

Nine year old Daniel's parents recieved the call that the cat had escaped about an half and hour later, and they decided to go back to the airport to search for the cat themselves, they was not able to talk to the kid , they just were told that the kid was crying when they took him to the plane.

Daniels parents spended two hours waiting and talking until somebody told them what had happened, and then after another hour and much pressure they were told that they could go and search for the cat themselves behind the checkin desks and in the deep anals of Ben-Gurion Airport.

Until now the cat has not been found, but the 50$ for sending the cat has been refunded (!@$ no words for this, sorry we lost your cat, but here is your 50 bucks)

Nine year old Daniels hart is broken, and it's difficult to tell your kid that it was NOT his fault over a telephone line 3000 miles away!!

4 Year old family cat Basti is still lost, and nobody want's to do anything, security one is blaming number two, two is blaming number one.

Daniels family will be driving to Tel Aviv airport to put up posters and to reward 100$ for the one that will find Basti.

(Sorry for cross posting this item)