When freighting animals, always send them early in the week. Never try to have an animal delivered on a Friday just in case there is a stuff up. If you send mid-week and there is a mistake, you should be able to get your animal the next day.
Getting an animal sent the day before a long weekend is an even bigger gamble. Horenz bad experience shows exactly why not to do this. The animal was in storage for almost 5 days. As part of the industry, I am fairly certain that this animal was simply misplaced. I doubt that it was removed by a staff member. To anyone outside of our hobby, a snake is not a valuable item. A courier would not risk his/her job to steal a snake worth a few hundred dollars. All parcels have a consignment number and can be traced. If a parcel goes missing, it easy to determine the exact point that it left the system. If there was a dishonest person stealing parcels at the AAE depot in question, there would be far more valuable items to choose from than a mere python.
Also, there would of only been a skeleton staff working on the Thursday. Any staff that worked on the preceeding Sunday would of had the Thursday off before the long weekend. Combine that with a large increase in the volume of mail leading up to Easter and you have a recipe for disaster.
Fortunately there was a happy ending to Horenz's story. I hope it serves as a warning to other people. NEVER freight the day before a long weekend.
