Blind Maine woman describes getting kicked off plane with service dog
 

Blind Maine woman describes getting kicked off plane with service dog

The service animal exception has gone wild.

Fake service animals get on. Real service animals don't.

Kids should be allowed to be service animals and fly free. After all, if they are left behind, the parents naturally get hysterical. Therefore, the parents NEED to have their service animal child. I hope this scenario never happens.

I'm going to make an assumption that you didn't read the article.

What do you mean by "exception"? You mean the law that allows disabled people the ability to travel with their service animal? The fact that others abuse the law does not in any way make it okay to just go kicking blind people off planes. At the end of the day, dogs are allowed on planes, so if an extra dog here and there catches a free ride, whats the big deal? Better that all disabled people are accommodated along with a few people abusing the rule than nobody get away with breaking the rule but drag a few disabled people under the bus with them. These service animals are incredibly important to the independence of the humans, they should be afforded every single benefit of the doubt.

The article just seems very premature and incomplete since it lacks any response/comment from AA (or any other perspective), isn't time critical, and could have been reported once the situation was resolved. As is the most it can do is drive uninformed speculation or be used to generate public outcry, neither of which seems an appropriate agenda for reporting "news" (but sadly is these days).

I know there's a thread somewhere else about this. From what had been learned the dog didn't fit, and then she asked to be moved to FC. They said no. Then there's some question of if she either begged or didn't FC passengers to switch seats. Basically woman got kicked off plane due to not following crew instructions, not because she had a dog. Also I believe they put her on a later flight.

According to the reports she was not allowed into FC because the AA agents said dogs weren't allowed in first class. Is this true? I have never heard of that.

If that is true, i have witnessed multiple violations of that rule :p

Of course this isn't true for service animals.

She wasn't a FC passenger. She tried to get agent to put her there so dog would have more room.

Who needs facts when you have emotion?

redacted

SpinOn2: According to the article she asked to be moved to F by offering to pay for an F seat: "She said she then asked whether she could purchase a first-class ticket, where there would be more floor room, but was again denied."
Of course (service) animals are allowed in First Class on AA. The alleged statement that they are not is definitely incorrect.

AA does not fly mainline aircraft between DCA and BGR. She must have been on a Republic E175. On these, a German shepherd will indeed not fit (comfortably) anywhere in the economy cabin. The only place the dog would be able to lie down in relative comfort on one of these would be in front of 2A on versions without a bulkhead wall, and that may or may not be possible depending on how the crew determined the animal hinders access to the exit in front. I travel a lot on AA with a dog who's only slightly smaller than hers and flew on a Republic RJ-175 once between ORD and OMA (paid F, seated in 2A), where the crew convened after I boarded and after a brief discussion it was determined that access to the exit was not obstructed by her lying down there. That may have been different with her dog who looks larger than mine (and maybe, just maybe, the root cause of why crew told her she could not move to F even if she paid for a seat)

The crew member certainly is to blame here. Especially not working with her after a passenger offered to give up their F seat because of a made-up "no animals in F" is inexcusable.

Which is relevant because???

You think they were on a quick-turn MR, heading back to where they started?

In reality:
Pretty sure they have more than RJs and E75's on that route.

Way too much conflicting info, one-sided, to conclude anything at this point

She asked a FA? She asked a ticketing agent? On the plane? In the terminal?

Seems like both of those things happened. More probably a gate agent than a ticket agent, but that's not a meaningful distinction for the purposes of this discussion.