Airlines are tightening their own rules on what qualifies as an emotional-support animal after high-profile incidents involving exotic creatures.
Barnyard animals were the final straw.
For lack of help from Transportation Department regulations, airlines are flocking to update their policies dealing with emotional-support animals — ranging from pigs to ducks — that occupy the cabin with passengers.
Delta Air Lines announced updates Jan. 19 that required 48-hour notice and more documentation for trained service animals and untrained emotional-support animals. The changes came after a large comfort dog bit another passenger in a highly publicized incident in June on a flight from Atlanta to San Diego.
United Airlines has been reviewing its policy since late last year but got more attention after rejecting a peacock named Dexter for a flight Sunday from Newark to Los Angeles. The airline had warned photographer and performance artist Ventiko three times that the bird wouldn’t be allowed to fly with her.
“What we’ve seen is that the Department of Transportation’s rules regarding emotional-support animals are not working as they were intended to,” said Charlie Hobart, a United spokesman. “We’ll have more to share soon.”
Airline policy changes raised concerns among advocacy groups for the disabled that rules could become too prohibitive.
“We do have a lot of worries about this,” said Bradley Morris, director of government relations for Psychiatric Service Dog Partners. “It seems like airlines couldn’t wait.”
The department plans to propose rules in July dealing with the animals. But adjustments are tricky enough that a department panel of industry experts spent months negotiating in 2016 and couldn’t reach a consensus.
“It’s overdue,” said Morris, who participated in the 2016 negotiations.
More on emotional-support animals and airlines:
Artist and her emotional support peacock were denied entry on flight
Delta tightens leash on comfort animals on flights, with rules for lack of federal regulation
Attention, fliers: You may need to leave your ‘comfort’ animal at home
Confusion over why animals are allowed on flights stems from different laws and regulations.
The Americans with Disabilities Act designated dogs and miniature horses as service animals, which are trained to assist people such as the deaf or blind.
But the Air Carrier Access Act opened the door to a greater variety of comfort animals that accompany disabled passengers who have a doctor’s note. These emotional-support animals are typically allowed to sit with their owners unless the animal creates a health or safety concern or obstructs an evacuation route.
The department offered airlines guidance in 2003 saying they didn’t have to accept reptiles, ferrets, rodents or spiders as emotional-support animals. But the guidance said pigs and monkeys, for example, should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Because of a vague definition for what qualifies as a comfort animal, Delta said passengers have brought turkeys, possums and snakes. Clashes between passengers over animals have grown. Delta now carries 250,000 service or emotional-support animals a year with its 180 million passengers.
Delta rules starting March 1 for traveling with service or comfort animals require documentation confirming the safety and necessity of the animal 48 hours before departure.
The passenger must provide a veterinary health form or vaccination record for either category of animals. For comfort animals and psychiatric-service animals, the passenger must also provide:
• A letter signed by a doctor or licensed mental-health professional stating the passenger’s need for the animal.
• A signed letter stating the animal is trained to behave without a kennel.
Delta expanded the department’s unaccepted animals to include hedgehogs; possums known as sugar gliders; non-household birds such as farm poultry, waterfowl and birds of prey; and animals with tusks or hooves.
United has also expanded the unacceptable list to include hedgehogs, sugar gliders, non-household birds, “exotic animals and animals not properly cleaned or carrying a foul odor.”
CertaPet, an online platform that connects licensed mental health professionals with passengers seeking to bring emotional-support animals on flights, supported Delta’s policy as a way to legitimize the animals that help people manage symptoms of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome and phobias.
“Although Delta is the first to require this, we do believe that this will become a standard for other airlines as well,’ said Haley Neidich, the director of clinical development at CertaPet. “This is a great step to legitimizing the process of traveling with an emotional-support animal.”
Romie Mushtaq, a medical doctor based in Orlando who once recorded a comfort pig that flew on one of her flights, said passengers are right to be skeptical when somebody brings an exotic animal along. She said there is no medical proof that animals other than highly trained dogs and in some cases horses are effective at calming down people with anxieties or stress or phobias.
“If someone is more comforted with a dog for a panic attack, rather than popping an addictive medication, absolutely it could be beneficial for certain patients,” Mushtaq said. “I think for the most part people are abusing the system, trying to find a licensed health practitioner who will fill out the paperwork so that they can fly their pets around the country without charge.”
Airlines lump psychiatric service animals with emotional-support animals. But psychiatric service animals are trained to identify an incipient panic attack in their owners, for example, and to alert them, Morris said.
He seeks to have psychiatric service dogs treated the same as trained dogs serving the blind or deaf. Document requirements, such as under Delta’s new policy, expose the disabled to more stigma, he said.
“It’s about coming up with a new system that addresses everyone’s concerns,” Morris said. “We expect a baseline of fraud no matter what the system is, so a lot of people rail against the fraudsters. But there is only so much you can do about that. You need to balance: How many barriers can you place against people with disabilities, who already have a hard time in the world.”
Airlines are also cautioning travelers about different rules in other countries.
