LegalTender

A degree of ad-libbing and discretionary play calling is still at issue. Southwest allegedly precluded an EpiPen injection on board. In-policy or out, that's a borderline refusal.

Dahan

Isn't an EpiPen for emergency treatment of an anaphylactic reaction? My understanding is that you can't use it to prevent an allergy. It's not an antihistamine like Benadryl, it's for opening your airways if your throat is swelling shut.

nsx

The alternative, which will become policy for all airlines, is to cancel the flight and wait for everyone to leave the plane. If the refusenik is the last one aboard then the airline can call the police for removal with no video recording. Everyone loses, including all the other passengers.

We can only hope that this will happen less often over time as there are no more news stories and no more payouts to the people causing cancellation of the flights.

LegalTender

Your throat swelling shut isn't an allergic reaction? Maybe it doesn't "prevent an allergy" but it's marketed as a symptom remedy.

wrp96

You are correct. In fact, once you use an Epi-pen you need to get to an emergency room within 30 minutes. There's also a reason most people carry two with them, because sometimes a 2nd shot is needed before you can get to the ER. It's not a you use it and you're fine thing. It's a you use it and you might be okay if you get to an ER quickly kind of thing.

Basically at the point where the lady claimed her allergy was so life threatening that she couldn't be on the same plane as the animals, there was nothing that would've made it okay to allow her on the same plane as the animals. If they had allowed her to fly, assuming she wasn't lying about the allergy (taking it in the kindest way possible to her), then they were risking a possible diversion. There is no waiver, separation of seats, etc that would've made it possible for her to continue on that flight as long as those animals (which were rightfully there) were also on the plane.

vanillabean

I did just that, but found the current incident to be all over the place, with one article stating that the passenger with the allergy “asked that an emotional support dog and a pet dog that were on the flight be removed.” So perhaps not what common convention and training requirements would describe as service dogs in the standard sense. Is it known whether the airline in advance checked the certificates of the dogs on the plane to see whether it could be documented that the dogs were needed in the company of their owners for the duration of the flight?

LegalTender

Or require 48 hour notice for pets and PA's to allergy-affllicted pax in the gate area ahead of boarding. Dogs shouldn't be scattered throughout the plane when human suffering can be mitigated.

Is quarantine history or vaccination proof demanded by any airline? ESA certification is all I'm aware of. Aren't fleas an issue?

DutchessPDX

My mother travels with her small dog (not a service dog) on occasion, usually on AK or WN, and the charge for the dog is sometimes more or as much as her own fare! So price isn't always the issue here. Also, I don't believe they're allowed to charge for service animals.

wrp96

They can't charge for service animals but as you said they do charge for pets. A lot of the uproar about ESAs is because people suspect the owners are trying to get around the pet fee by claiming their pet is an ESA. In this case though, we have one ESA and one person who actually paid the pet fee, and the "fake ESA" uproar is just a way of distracting from the issue of someone claiming an allergy to try and get preferential treatment and then being upset when they called her bluff.

LegalTender

If she'd presented a note from a board certified allergist they would have off-loaded the dogs?

Notwithstanding the insubordination, the airline had comparatively few options to make all parties chill.

elevatorgeek

How do they enforce payment of the pet fee anyway? Do you get some special notation on your BP? If you bypass the ticket counter and go straight to security how will the GA know if you stopped to pay the pet fee or not?

Troopers

Southwest could allow her to remain on the plane. Their policy allows it. When she refused to deplane, Southwest had choices. You and WN may not like them or they are hard choices, but there are choices prior to calling the cops.

I didn't suggest WN remove the paxs with the dogs (IDB). Why didn't WN offer those paxs with dogs an alternative flight with compensation (VDB)? That's a choice that WN did not do.


But WN defaulted to the police.

UA had choices too, remember? But they chose (and their policies) not to make any choice but to rely on the cops to solve the problem.

Amicus

Nope. Removing her was the ONLY choice because Ms. Entitled declared that she had a life threatening allergy to dogs. The ONLY option was to remove her from that flight and then re-book her on another flight.

No where is it stated that she documented this life threatening allergy, either when booking or at the gate. Furthermore, no where is it stated that the pax with two dogs were "hiding", rather than in plain view in the boarding area.

Southwest Captain has the responsibility for the safety of the aircraft, passengers and crew. He made the absolutely only correct decision possible, demand that she deplane, rather than risk an in-flight medical emergency.

This is not a Southwest problem. Airlines accept dogs in the cabin. Until this issue is addressed, planes ARE for dogs (with accompanying pax), whether people like it or not.

eyeballer

No. I don't see any possible scenario that would have them off-load the dogs and their owners who (whether people here like it or not) had all the rights to be there.

Southwest does state this on their website:
Did the passenger present to the gate with this? My assumption is no.

It's not clear to me what the purpose of the medical note is for in this case. Possibly... if someone claims a "life-threatening" allergy and doesn't have appropriate preparations/medications to mitigate it then the captain or SWA could require the customer have a note saying they're safe to fly without said medications.

UA Apologist

If you invited a guest to your house and, at the end of the day, the quest refused to leave, would you spend the night negotiating alternatives or would you call the police?