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TIA turned inside out, but no feline is found

Delta loves it, but it won't show. Posters go up, nightly searches go on, machines are disassembled. Here, kitty...

By JEAN HELLER
Published March 14, 2005

TAMPA - Lori Perrin and her family rescued a black, stray kitten eight years ago, and now Perrin is trying to do it again.

Halle, a coal black female with a white spot on her stomach, disappeared from her kennel at Tampa International Airport on Feb. 14 as she waited with four other Perrin cats to be loaded on a Delta Air Lines flight for Atlanta and a connection to Seattle, where the family was moving. Her disappearance wasn't discovered until the kennels, one of them empty, arrived in Seattle.

"When we first reported that Halle was missing, Delta people in Seattle showed no signs of concern whatsoever," Perrin said. "They would have been more concerned if it had been a lost bag. It was four or five days before they began to respond at all."

Then Meme Combs, a Delta manager at TIA, heard about Halle and galvanized the search. Combs even used her own Delta bonus miles to bring Perrin back to the area from Seattle to help in the search.

Almost every night for two weeks, between 11:30 p.m. and 2 a.m. (after all Delta flights are done for the day), Perrin has been escorted by a Delta employee into the secure baggage handling area where she calls out to her cat, hoping, so far in vain, to lure Halle from a hiding place. Tonight is her last chance before she returns to Seattle on Tuesday.

"I call for her. I have left food and treats for her. But she never touches them. I'm just crushed," said Perrin last week, close to tears. "This was my cat, my baby. She'd been with me for eight years, since we found her as a stray. I want her back."

Combs, who has three cats of her own, said she can relate to Perrin's anguish.

"I love cats, and I'd be devastated if something like that happened to one of mine," she said.

According to Combs, the story unfolded this way:

When Lori Perrin, 28, and her mother, Kathy, checked the cats with the Transportation Security Administration before the Feb. 14 Atlanta flight, they expressed concern that Halle might be able to get out through one of two doors on her kennel and asked that the doors be taped shut.

After the cats went through security, a "runner" picked them up to take them to the plane and noticed that one of the kennels was empty. Because it was taped, the runner thought it was damaged and was being shipped somewhere for repair.

Perrin said she asked a flight attendant in Atlanta to check to make sure all five cats had made the connection for Seattle and was assured all were on board.

"I think what they must have done was count the kennels, not look inside," Perrin said.

When the search for Halle began in earnest, Perrin e-mailed pictures of the cat to Combs, who made up posters that were hung around Delta's offices at TIA.

"Everybody got into the search," Combs said. "Every time somebody spotted a stray cat at the airport, we responded. Everybody helped keep food and water down for Halle, in case she was still around. It hasn't been for lack of trying that we haven't found her."

At one point, Combs said, several employees thought they heard a cat crying inside a baggage handling system near where Halle disappeared.

"They called airport maintenance and had them take the belt system apart to look for the cat, but she wasn't there," Combs said.

For the first two weeks, Combs didn't want to bring Perrin back to help in the search "because I felt that we could find the cat on our own." But after two weeks, it was clear that the Delta search team needed backup.

Perrin has been here since March 1, searching the dark spaces of the airport for her pet.

She thinks the empty kennel should have raised red flags for the Delta employees who put it on the plane, but TIA spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan says it is not unusual for someone to ship an empty kennel.

"Somebody might borrow one to fly a pet home and then ship it back to the owner," Geoghagan said. "An empty kennel isn't a cause for concern in and of itself."

At Delta Air Lines corporate headquarters in Atlanta, spokesman Anthony Black said there was little to comment on because an investigation of the incident is continuing. "We're still working diligently to reunite the pet owner with her cat," Black said.

If Halle has found a way out of the airport building, she stands a fair chance of surviving in the wild. She is neutered but still has her claws, so she can hunt and defend herself.

"People at the animal shelters tell us we should keep looking for eight weeks," Combs said. "If she got out, she might have fallen in with some of the feral cats that live around the airport. But we really want to find her. I pray every day that she'll be found. That would be the best possible outcome."

--Jean Heller can be reached at 727 893-8785 or heller@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 14, 2005, 01:28:20]