mjh0

Speaking as someone who takes medication due to chronic underlying health "fun", I have a supply in my carry-on (which is enough to last me the entire trip length plus a few extra days) and an extra 1-2 week supply in my checked bag in case I'm stuck for a longer period down-route.

Can I help you

The crew should have everything possible to resolve this, not doing anything is not an option.

mediamonkey

If I’m going to someone’s house and they have a dog, I’ll take the tablets. If I’m going about my normal day I won’t.

I did not expect there to be a dog on a plane tbh.

Can I help you

I’m sorry if it offends anyone, actually I’m not, but emotional support animals are b.ll......

sweetsleep

I read somewhere quite a while ago after my dog allergic sister was forced to be next to a dog that the onus is on the allergic passenger to inform the airline in advance of said allergy so that hopefully steps can be taken to avoid offloading the allergic passenger if no remedies are available such as reseating, etc. In that case perhaps the dog and owner would be offloaded instead?
I hope someone can come along to answer if that is indeed true.

EJetter

Worth noting that BA's basic first aid kit contains antihistamines - they're only Benadryl or similar but if you don't have your medication with you they could at least help take the edge off the symptoms.

EJetter

Passengers seated next to an assistance dog are supposed to be notified at the gate, and if they have an allergy will be relocated (either by ground crew or cabin crew) in the same cabin. Policy states that if this isn't possible then then the passenger with the allergy is offloaded, not the assistance dog.

testycal

next....must eat peanuts on board as they are "comfort food"? Emotional support for those on board takes many forms...food, blanket, teddy bear, narcotics and booze pre flight, mood music....does BA know a dog will be boarded before checkin....are there size guidelines...dog pays for transport...what if dog stinks to high heaven....allowed to bark and whimper during flight and finally can Rufus be added to BAEC family Avios progran?

cosmo74

I was thinking you must have been on AA, dogs are pretty common on there, particularly if flying to/from Europe, where pets are allowed and not just "Emotional Support Animals". There were three in the J cabin on a flight I took from Milan to Miami. One was wearing a nappy, it peed through the side of the nappy straight onto the floor of the terminal when we landed in MIA, the owner just swanned off and didn't bother to alert anyone. Got to hope the same didn't happen on the plane. Have to say thought that I didn't notice any of them until we were disembarking.

HIDDY

Whenever the missus gives me a row I go and get emotional support from 'Corchito the cafe dog'. He's very famous you know.

flatlander

The "Emotional support" animal classification is so poorly policed and so widely abused that any non-working dog in an aircraft can be assumed to be the pet of someone playing the system. It is, as CIHY says, bull... nearly all the time.

bhomburg

.
Not only US carriers. BA ranks right at the top of the 'difficult-to-fly-with-animals' scale, together with the ME airlines (where people bringing falcons into the cabin are a thing, tough).
On BA, you can be 100% sure that any dog flying in the cabin is a bona-fide, vetted, 'real' assistance dog. Acceptance standards are very strict indeed, and emotional support animals ('ESA') which they reluctantly had to allow to and from the US for a few years are a thing of the past, acceptance was stopped for good in January 2021. No dog other than bona fide, UK-recognized assistance dogs have ever been able to set a paw on a BA flight since then.

As someone who traveled with a service dog on multiple airlines including BA and has encountered allergic passengers before:
The crew's response to your request was, well, substandard. In my experience, they were very helpful to reallocate seats so proper separation between dog and allergic passenger.

If you want to make absolutely sure you won't be traveling on the same plane as a dog, you'd need to fly TK - they have an official policy of not allowing passengers with assistance animals to fly on the same aircraft as passengers with allergies who have notified them (and supplied proper medical documentation) of said allergy in advance.
Or Korean - they have dedicated seating for passengers with animals who always get placed in the window seat on the starboard side in the last row of business class. This is visible on the seatmap so easily avoided by allergic passengers.

Trained assistance dogs (and their handlers) know about this and will time things so there won't be a need to use the facilities for the duration of a flight, even a long one. 12 hours are fine IME.
I`ve been doing this for a decade and never had an issue.

Assistance dogs are allowed in the lounges, yes, so pre-flight dining is a thing .
BA needs to be notified at least three days in advance if you want to fly with an assistance dog. Bypassing human verification is not possible, too. They ask for size and weight and can (and will!) deny acceptance if either the documentation or the animal's behavior at check-in isn't up to their liking 100%.
Seriously, BA is a real pain to use with any sort of in-cabin animal (I tried to avoid BA as much as possible when with the dog). There's a reason why there's so few dog threads on the BA board compared to other, more pet-friendly airlines.


Not on BA., not even back when they were allowed (but very grudgingly so) for a few years prior to January 2021 when thy were prohibited again. To reiterate: Ever since January 2021, no dog except carefully vetted assistance dogs have been able to get on board a BA flight.
Even US airlines have now closed their cabins to "emotional support " dogs following regulatory changes that allowed them to do so.

mediamonkey

really interesting insight in your whole post. Thanks for the reply

c1223

Flew AA the other day from MIA to JFK and there was a rather large labrador across the row from me in the aisle. Sitting in the bulkhead of economy. It was certainly a tight squeeze to have a dog that size between the passenger's legs and the dog definitely didn't sit still for the flight. Spent a lot of effort trying to crawl its way under the last row of first class seats as there was obviously some tasty smelling food up there. Couldn't quite work out whether it was of any actual medical relevance to the passenger as there was no doggy high viz. The passengers next to the dog didn't seem overly happy, but it was a completely full flight so I guess not much use in complaining.

Butts

Can you have Cats as well as Dogs in the "Emotional Support" category ?