Seems a harsh way to treat kids, I would have just taken the toys away.
Yeah, what those parents SHOULD have done is say “Play quietly or Raichu and Charmander will spend the rest of the flight in the overhead compartment” and I’d have been more than satisfied.
I was joking that what you wrote could read as though you wanted to stuff the kids in the bathroom trash and return the damn things to the parents at the end of the flight.
I have no emotional support dog in this fight, but I’m curious how big a problem this actually is. Does anyone know
- How often are emotional support animals taken on airplane flights?
- How often do they cause problems or annoyances on those flights?
- How many people need (in a loose sense) an emotional support animal with them when they fly?
Personally, I’d think that bringing an animal with me on an airline flight would substantially increase my stress, since I would have to worry about keeping it safe, what if it tries to run away, what if it needs food or water, what if it needs to go to the bathroom, etc, etc.
At least I gave them back at the end of the flight.
In my first mental iteration of the idea I did flush them. I reconsidered. My better nature got the best of me.
See post 43, I was kidding.
Figured. Just took me a while. Slow as molasses in January I am.
Thank you. That’s helpful, even though it doesn’t directly answer any of my questions.
While you’re right in that the article (and the underlying survey) doesn’t have hard numbers on “how often are they brought on planes,” nor “how often do they cause problems”, what it does tell us is that three out of five flight U.S. flight attendance have experienced an incident with a problematic emotional support animal.
That does strongly suggest two things:
- Someone bringing an emotional support animal (or a pet which the passenger claims to be an ESA) onto a flight is not uncommon
- Misbehaving or problematic animals in the passenger cabin is not the “rare occurrence” that @Portlandia believes it to be, and it isn’t “just a few” entitled assholes causing the problem
I had a similar experience a year and a half ago, only it was two young girls (probably around age 5 or 6), sitting in the row directly behind me, who were completely out of control. Climbing on the back of my seat, kicking the back of my seat, standing on their seat armrests, dancing in the aisle – all while the plane was going through some heavy turbulence, with the seat belt lights on, and the flight crew continually reminding the passengers to stay seated. The parents did nothing, other than hiss the girls’ names every few minutes. (Why the flight attendant did not directly address the parents, I have no idea.)
Anyone can go online and get a letter from a “doctor”.
Also, there is little to no evidence that so-called ESAs actually do anything.
Emotional support animals: Are they real? What are they used for? - Insider
The concept of emotional support animals is asinine. I fully support this ruling. The companionship a dog provides is not “emotional support”. If it were, then everyone’s pet is an ESA. Why does your pet travel for free, but mine does not? If there is an actual medical need for the animal, then it would be protected under the ADA.
I would support a rule that allowed people to bring any well-behaved animal onto the plane–for free under a certain weight, and for the price of a ticket if larger. Give the dog its own seat. It’s silly to make them fly as cargo. But people abusing a system simply to more easily fly with their pets shouldn’t be tolerated. The system is obviously flawed. Update the system to more accurately reflect reality (people want to bring their pets on the plane), or get rid of it entirely.
I fly with my dog often. I pay for this convenience. I often get told that I should “register the dog as an ESA” or something along those lines, so that I could fly with him for free. I refuse to lower myself to such nonsense.
Training a dog to behave isn’t the same as training it to perform a specific task to assist someone with a disability. Unless a dog has been trained to perform a specific task (help someone keep their balance, act as their eyes, smell their sugar level, etc., etc.,) it cannot be classified as a service animal under current ADA criteria.
Which is only reasonable. However, guide dogs in training are allowed on flights, in restaurants, in supermarkets etc.
My point was that the expensive part of training is the service part. The socialization part does not cost all that much. If ESAs had the socialization training there would be many fewer problems. I think that would be a reasonable compromise, though probably unacceptable to those who just want to take their pets along for free.
I think this is really the issue. When I worked at the food stamp office, it was very easy to tell the difference between the service dogs and the ESA pets. The service dogs didn’t eliminate on the floor, growl at other pets or customers or snap or bite, it was poorly trained pets that caused the problems.
Of course, it was easier for the security guards to turf someone from an office than from a plane in mid-air, but it was still unpleasant.
I’m way late, but the OP is lost in space as to the facts. Both the facts of what’s been happening in the industry, and what the new regs require and enable.
You’ve cited an article specifically pointing out the danger to pets that are taken on board as passengers.
If you are so mentally incapacitated that you need an animal in order to fly in an airplane, then stay home.
I need an emotional support animal after reading this thead.