Hero Update: Airport Baggage Worker Is Offered Her Job Back

Lynn Jones at home with Manny, one of her three adopted dogs (Photo: Marilyn Newton, Reno Gazette-Journal)

[Updated Dec. 8, 2011]

Dogsters, if you ever doubt your power to help with injustice, this should make you realize that your voices count: Because of the public outcry over the firing of Reno airport baggage handler Lynn Jones when she refused to load an emaciated, abused dog onto a plane bound for Texas, Jones’s employer has offered her back her job. You and others who deluged her employer with calls and e-mails after reading the story on Dogster or elsewhere made a huge difference.

Jones “was trying to protect the dog, and I think she was courageous in doing that,” Airport Terminal Services president Sally Leible told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I really, truly hope she will come back.”

See what you can do in the name of righting wrongs?

Here’s what’s on the ATS home page today, from Leible:

Airport Terminal Services (ATS) sincerely regrets the events that took place at Reno-Tahoe International Airport last week involving our employees and the reporting of suspected animal abuse.

We applaud Ms. Lynn Jones’ courage to report the unfavorable condition of the animal she encountered, and we encourage others to be as vigilant as she was.

Further, we have connected with Ms. Jones today to extend her an offer to be fully reinstated to her position with back pay.  We will continue to work diligently to resolve this matter. We are hopeful that this valued ATS team member will rejoin us.

ATS will use this experience as a valuable reminder for all of our employees nationwide, and we intend to move forward with a renewed commitment to recognize and report animal abuse in any form.

Additionally, in light of this regrettable incident, ATS will be making a three-year financial contribution to the Nevada Humane Society in an effort to strengthen awareness regarding the mistreatment of animals.

Well that’s a pretty great result from this one very unfortunate incident.

Yesterday ATS posted this message at its website:

“ATS takes this situation extremely seriously and commends this employee’s situational awareness and her desire to raise the concern on behalf of the canine involved and relieved to hear that the canine will fully recover. ATS very much appreciates and supports the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority’s and the Washoe County Regional Animal Services for their care and support for the canine.  Additionally, ATS is investigating the situation to ensure all protocols were followed in the handling of this canine.”

They really acted on this. It’s heartening to see, even if it’s just a PR move. I’m pretty sure it goes beyond putting out fires, though. I don’t think the right people were aware of what happened until the story broke. And when it broke and they heard from you and others, they realized something very wrong had happened, and acted to right it.

Jones had stated that she loved her job of five years, and wouldn’t trade it for the world. There’s no word yet about whether she’ll take it back. As of Tuesday night, she had not accepted the offer. Update: She is going back! “We’re like a family at ATS,” Jones told KRNV-TV. “We fight, we make up, and we move on. I hope we can move on from this.”

A lot of you said she should be made supervisor for her actions in helping the dog. Do you think ATS should throw in something like that to sweeten the deal?

As for the Pointer, it seems that after being nursed back to health in Reno, he was returned to his owner in Texas. That is the one really unfortunate part of this story. I hope there’s a way that someone is keeping tabs on this dog down there. No word on that, though. Maybe that will be our next update.

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A Great Idea: Airport Therapy from a Lovable Dog

Henry James is there for anyone who needs a furry shoulder to cry on.

Airports aren’t filled solely with travelers who are harried or excited or just doing business as usual. Look a little under the layers of an airport scene, and you’ll find a woman going to the funeral of her beloved mother. Or a man moving away after a painful divorce. Or — for the sake of this blog — someone whose dog just died.

It’s all there if you just look around. That’s exactly what Kyra Hubis, a volunteer chaplain at San Jose International Airport in California, would do at the airport during her rounds. And sometimes she found people to help.

But it wasn’t until she started bringing in Henry James, her golden retriever therapy dog, that she became a magnet to those in need.

“I’ve walked the terminal without him and people don’t come up to me, but if I walk the terminal with him he’s an ice breaker,” Hubis said in a KSBY News story.

Henry James offers a soft and furry shoulder to cry on, and nonjudgmental ears to hear troubles of others. He’s there for everyone, from the grieving to the simply nervous.

Hubis said a couple recently approached Henry James, and the wife, “knelt down on the floor, buried her head in his fur, and for a good two or three minutes was sobbing and telling him her father was dying in town here and that she and her husband were having to leave and she didn’t know if she was ever going to see him again.”

I think airports should trade in all their TSA scanners for therapy dogs, don’t you? The terminals would be more relaxed and happy places to be.

Thank you, Kyra and Henry, for being such devoted practitioners of your highly caring craft.

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