t-2.5h: The Flight Supervisor from Hell

We are taking all the luggage and Gina back to the checkin queue. Checkin queue guys are still nice. We wait in line. It's our turn. Everything is fine. We put Gina on the scale. Scale shows 9kg. The checkin guy is like: no problem, you're gonna be okay.

The bottom of the bag is a detachable metal plate, which stabilizes the overall bag. The metal plate adds about 1kg to the weight of the bag. So for obvious reasons, we removed this plate before putting Gina in the bag and before putting the whole bag together with Gina on the luggage scale. So the 9kg shown by the scale are actually about 500g bag + 8.5kg Gina. That's actually too heavy for what is allowed in the cabin according to Lufthansa regulations. But at that point in time it seems as if we were okay. (Problem: because we removed the metal plate the overall bag is kinda instable. Admittedly Gina does not look too happy with her home being soft-ish instead of being a proper rigid home.)

All of sudden a guy shows up from behind yelling at us. He yells, that we will not be allowed to take Gina into the cabin. She is too big. The bag is to small. She is too heavy anyway. Not according to the regulations of Lufthansa. He then introduces himself as the flight supervisor. In the calmest way possible I try to explain to him, that

1. the dog has been sleeping in this very bag for at least 4 months
2. it adopted the bag as her home
3. she is in no way too big for this bag and
4. she has been staying inside the bag deliberately as much as she could over the past months. She actually used every opportunity to stay inside the bag, because it is her personal protected space, her safe place.

Guy continues to yell at us basically suggesting that we are torturing our dog, that it is obvious, that the dog feels uncomfortable, we wouldn't know anything about keeping dogs. Message: how dare we abuse our dog in such a way?

Again I try to explain, that no harm is done to the dog. The bag is the favorite place of this dog. But there is no point in discussing with the guy. As suddenly as he appeared he exits the scene yelling that he has to inform his supervisor.

Enter Ms. M. Apparently Ms. M. is the flight supervisor's supervisor. She tells me in a calmer voice that we will not be allowed to take Gina into the cabin. She (i.e. Gina) is too big. The bag is to small. She is too heavy anyway. Not according to the regulations of Lufthansa. All hell breaks loose. P. is crying, near collapse. I try to negotiate with Ms. M... in vain. They are forcing us to either leave the dog behind (which is impossible) or transport the dog to Europe as part of the plane's cargo (which we are not at all prepared for).