A dog meant to be joining its family in Phoenix, Arizona ended up on a flight to Ireland after being put on the wrong plane from a New Jersey airport.
Owner Edith Lombardo-Albach told ABCNews.com that her six year-old Springer Spaniel named Hendrix was due to arrive in Arizona on a United Airlines flight.
But minutes before the flight was due to land she received a phone call to say that the dog had been put on the wrong flight, and was en route to Shannon, Ireland, instead of Phoenix.
Lombardo-Albach said the family was in the process of moving from New York to Arizona and her daughter Meredith Grant had left for Phoenix earlier on a US Airways flight that would not accept animals as cargo.
She said the airline was going to have someone clean the dog, feed the dog, walk the dog, and then they were going to get the dog back on the plane and send him to Newark.
She said: "The dog had already gone seven hours to Ireland, and now the dog has a two-hour layover and then a seven-hour flight to Newark."
Lombardo-Albach said United Airlines offered her a free refund for the dog’s flight.
United Airlines spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said in a statement that the airline regretted that Hendrix was boarded on the wrong aircraft.
"We are reviewing the circumstances surrounding the situation and will take steps to prevent this from happening again," she said.
