Flight Attendants Report Disruptive Behavior From Emotional Support Animals
Sharon Hsu September 18, 2018
The U.S. Department of Transportation defines service animals as “any animal that is individually trained or able to provide assistance to a person with a disability; or any animal that assists persons with disabilities by providing emotional support” and currently allows passengers to fly with certain service animals in the cabin and free of charge.
Passengers are increasingly flying with emotional support or psychiatric service animals, but many flight attendants question if some travelers are trying to pass off household pets as medically-necessary in order to fly with them for free.
The United States Department of Transportation notes on their webpage regarding service animals that “An animal that engages in disruptive behavior (ex. barking or snarling, running around, and/or jumping onto other passengers, etc. without being provoked) will not be accepted as a service animal.”
A recently released survey from the Association of Flight Attendants, the union representing over 50,000 members at 20 different airlines, revealed that 62% of the nearly 5,000 flight attendants surveyed reported witnessing a disruption caused by an emotional support animal. 53% of those disruptions included aggressive behavior like barking or snarling, and 26% were caused by animals relieving themselves in the cabin, an unsanitary behavior that the Department of Transportation also forbids.
AFA President Sara Nelson told the LA Times that the association believes there is “rampant abuse of claiming a need for emotional support animals in air travel” and that such abuse causes “a safety, health and security issue” for all passengers.
While airlines cannot charge extra for a service animal, DOT guidelines do allow them to request documentation from passengers proving a medical need for an emotional support animal. Some airlines, such as Southwest, are increasingly enforcing this rule, along with other requirements like requiring passengers to keep their animals on-leash or in a carrier during flights.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
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They need to have a dr. put his license on the line by filling out a "prescription" for these emotional support animals, and there needs to be some form of formal behavioral training for them. I have seen too many animals using the terminals as their bathrooms and their owners just continued to walk away.
seeing eye dogs were around for decades. you never heard a bad word about them or their owners. this whole service animal thing has been abused to high heaven, just an excuse to bring "fluffy" along. sorry folks, if you need a support animal to fly , stay on the ground (except for seeing eye dogs).