Puerto Rico – A New York woman, trapped in Puerto Rico with her parrot, made it home after an airline agreed to fly her back to New York. Maria Fraterrigo, 76, found herself stranded in Puerto Rico for nearly a week when Frontier Airlines told her that she could not fly home with her emotional support parrot.

Fraterrigo had flown from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Puerto Rico with her bird, Plucky, but the airline said that it was a gate attendant “error” that allowed the pair to make their flight. Rather than allowing Fraterrigo and her parrot on their scheduled flight home, an airline employee told her to “get rid of the bird,” if she wanted to fly, reports KPTV News.

Fraterrigo had no intention of abandoning her companion, so she went public with her story, recounting the troubling situation with ABC 7 News. Not long after Frontier Airlines was bombarded with calls and emails from people angered by the situation, they reversed course and decided that Plucky could fly home with Fraterrigo.

The pair made it safely back to New York, but the ordeal was traumatizing enough that Fraterrigo has said she will never fly again, reports the New York Post.

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