Posted on 12/11/2018 9:08:04 AM PST by Simon Green
2018 is not a great year if you’re an emotional support animal. Southwest, American, Spirit, JetBlue and even Royal Caribbean have all clamped down on emotional support animals, but it’s Delta that has thrown down the hardest. Back in March, the airline began requiring that all passengers traveling with a support or service animal provide additional documents, outlining the need for the service animal as well as proof of the animal’s training and vaccinations, 48 hours prior to departure.
Several months later, it increased restrictions once more, limiting passengers to “one emotional support animal per flight” and forbidding “pit bull type” dogs altogether. This week, it’s taking yet another step by banning all emotional support animals on any flight longer than eight hours, while banning all emotional support animals under four months of age, regardless of flight length
Delta’s updated policy follows an “84% increase in reported incidents involving service and support animals” between 2016 and 2017, including “urination/defecation, biting and even a widely reported attack by a 70-pound dog.” Delta asserts that the “updated support and service animal age requirement aligns with the vaccination policy of the CDC, and the eight-hour flight limit for emotional support animals is consistent with the principles outlined in the US Department of Transportation’s Air Carrier Access Act.”
The new limits take effect on Dec. 18, 2018, though customers with tickets purchased prior to Dec. 18, who have already requested to travel with an emotional support animal will be allowed to travel as originally ticketed. Regardless of booking date, emotional support animals will not be accepted on flights longer than eight hours on or after Feb. 1, 2019.
Earlier this year, the Association of Flight Attendants surveyed 5,000 flight attendants across 30 airlines on the impact of ESAs. The survey revealed that 61% of flight attendants said onboard emotional support animals have caused some sort of inflight disturbance, with more than half describing these disturbances as aggressive or threatening behavior by the animal.
I don’t see a problem with the new restrictions.
Emotional support dogs are just another snowflake pile of bovine excrement.
I know people who game the system so they can inflict their pets upon the public.
I do: It's not a total ban.
I’m surprised they allow them at all.
My wife and I were at the airport over the holidays and we were shocked at all the dogs in the airport.
You mean I can’t take my SUPPORT HIPPO with me?......................
AMEN!! Plus, they don’t want to spend the money for a Kennel!!
Thanks to the slobs who brought pigs, snakes and walruses aboard planes and called them “emotional support” animals.
Anyone who wants it can get a brief b.s. letter from a “psychologist” saying they have “anxiety” and need the “emotional support animal.”
There are plenty of shrinks who simply sell these letters to all comers. It’s all such b.s.
Well there goes my trip to Burkina Faso with my emotional support Komodo Dragon.
Who else has spotted an ‘airport miracle’?
Where someone claims to be disabled, has airline staff cart their lazy asses all over the airport- bypassing all the lines, only to get up and walk away on arrival?
I’ve seen it AT LEAST 3 times, and it is always a certain ‘protected race’. Just like 90% of the shoplifting at my sisters store was done by 10% of her customers- also of the same ‘protected race’.
ARE THERE NO BLACK PEOPLE WITH ANY DIGNITY OR SHAME ? to call their own out?
They are the only animals legitimately trained as support animals.
Now I can see the bottle version of Wild Turkey as emotional support. The feathery kind not so much!
Agreed. If you're too emotionally unstable to travel without your "emotional support dog" then you're too emotionally unstable to inflict yourself on the public and you should commit yourself for a course of treatment.
I also wish Southwest would crack down on these phonies who travel with their pets loose on the aircraft. You see these a$$holes letting their pets run loose in the airport, ironically often right by the signs that says pets must be kept in carriers.
Most big airlines are Copycats, so I expect others to soon do the same thing in their own way. The Fido-Fifi thing has gotten out of control. Other customer’s needs and preferences are being stepped on or ignored. I like such animals a great deal, but there are times when I don’t want them around.
For me, the worst part of a plane ride is the final descent.
That air pressure will often give me an ear ache that wont clear up until I have walked out of the airport.
I would not want to subject an animal to that.
Aren’t their ears a lot more sensitive to sound, and air pressure? Well alright, then! That reason alone should outlaw it, for humane reasons. Don’t make our furry Pals suffer just because we need to hold onto a ‘Teddy Bear’.
I am speechless!
Nothing says emotional comfort quite like a live turkey.
"Honey badger doesn't give a sh!t." LOL.
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