Ldcorrado

However....they should have made more of an effort to move you since you have allergies even if it meant offering someone miles or a voucher to switch seats with you.

FWAAA

Airlines are under no obligation to offer money, miles, vouchers or any other payment to motivate passengers to switch seats to accommodate allergic passengers.

LETTERBOY

What good would raising his awareness have done? If he's allergic, he's allergic.

mvoight

Possibly, but it sounded like the OP had an issue with encroachment and that is a valid complaint, and AA has guidelines on this.

Stripy

Theres a difference between what airlines 'have to do' and just plain and simple good, cheap PR.

GeneralVeers

All irrelevant to the discussion. The main issue is that this dog was too large for the cabin, and took up adjacent passenger's space.

I would not have allowed this situation and I'm surprised that the OP did. It is never appropriate for any part of someone's animal to be in my seat/foot space. The animal simply should not fly if it cannot fit within the space allotted to its owner.

TheDudeAbides

This.

FlyerChrisK

The emphasis on awareness here is that there are several commenters on this thread who sound like they would be more satisified if they saw a "traditional-looking disabled person" (whatever that means) with an animal than a seemingly able-bodied person who they would suspect was faking.

As noted, not every disability that might involve having an animal with is visible (PTSD, etc.).

inpd

As the OP, the fundamental issue is that:

1) This was not a trained service animal and behaved extremely badly throughout the flight. Service animals are trained to handle stress.

2) The animal was scared and continually was hiding under my legs, kicking when there was a bump in the flight and generally invading my space.

The point is that owner was in his 20's and this was clearly a pet not a service animal.

FWAAA

So what? If it wasn't a service animal, then it was an emotional support animal. Careful readers of this thread (and all others like it, since it comes up every several weeks) would see that the terms "service animal" and "emotional support animal" are terms of art. Emotional Support Animals ARE PETS. And that's OK.

Your post above makes me think you may not have read the responses in this thread. And I'm not talking about the "Emotional Support Animals are BS and shouldn't be allowed" posts.

"Service Animals" assist the blind, deaf and other disabled passengers; the animal helps their handler compensate for and overcome their disability so they can travel.

"Emotional Support Animals" assist those with emotional or mental disabilities and help their handlers overcome their problems, so they can travel.

Both classes of animals get to travel for free at their handlers' feet. That's the law.

Yes, the one you encountered wasn't the best trained or the best behaved. So write to AA and complain if you want. Your complaint won't make a bit of difference. The law requires that airlines permit service animals and emotional support animals. Even without the law, airlines might permit them.

I'm curious: What does his age have to do with anything? So he's in his 20's. So what? Emotional support animals can serve passengers of any age, from young child to decrepit old senior citizen and any age between those.

Bottom line: if the dog was a problem for you, then you should have spoken up before the door closed.

twtrvl

Or neither of the above

Mark_T

It does not however require adjacent passengers to give up the space they have paid for, to accommodate them ...

I am truly sorry for those few people who have a genuine need for an emotional support animal because the huge numbers of people fraudulently misrepresenting their pets as 'emotional support' animals just to avoid paying the fees and putting them in kennels are spoiling this for those with real need.

nrr

If the dog encroaches on another pax space (whether emotional support or just a pet), wouldn't it be reasonable to have them (dog + owner) purchase two seats--then no one would be inconvenienced (except for the dog owners wallet)? [The dog might even make exp, if he took enough of these trips and had miles credit to his acct.]
PS: On the Swiss railroads, tickets are "impersonal", dogs are allowed to ride, but must pay (free if carried in a basket or carrier).

chrisny2

[deleted]

bhomburg

I tried that. Doesn't work:
Only individual persons are eligible for AAdvantage program membership. Corporations, other entities, animals or blocked-seat baggage are not eligible to become AAdvantage members or to accrue AAdvantage miles - from the Aadvantage T&Cs.

With a EU pet passport, which has nationalities and unique identifying numbers which can be used for secure flight data etc., you might even get away with it until the account gets audited

In Europe, most countries' public transport systems make you pay child fare for pets that aren't small and in a carrier (unlike in the US where you can't take animals on Amtrak or Greyhound or any city transit system, you can actually bring pets onboard public transport networks in most EU countries). On the French TGV, I actually book the dog as a child and reserve a seat for her. This way, I ensure there's enough space and we won't encroach on anyone. In Germany and Switzerland, you can get half-price fare passes and the like for animals.