Originally Posted by
whherron
The wife is allergic to cats and birds. I go out of my way to tell the airline after booking so they can update her PNR. It hasn't happened yet, but she understands that when the time comes she'll have to leave the plane, and the airline will put her on another flight (though it may be a day or two).
I contacted UA but they told me that even if they note the issue in the PNR that this does not mean anyone looks at it and currently they have no way to flag in the system when someone has an allergy to animals. Although they are able to tell if there will be pets on the flight.
Their advice to me is to check with the Gate Agent if there are any animals on the flight and ensure I am not seated near them and ask to be moved if I am. This is what I do.
Although this approach did not work for me last Thursday as there were no animals on my flight but there apparently had been one on the earlier flight as I started sneezing and eyes running and throat closing but fortunately they needed to replace the plane with a new one and all of a sudden all my symptoms disappeared.