The key to getting a row of your own? Apparently bringing your dog onboard…
Yesterday afternoon I flew from Los Angeles to Washington Dulles on United. It was an afternoon flight and was pleasantly filled, but not packed. In other words, there were several middle seats open.
In the gate area was a woman with a large dog…it looked like a black Dobermann. This was an emotional support animal. It wasn’t a service animal because it lacked the identifying vest or patch. It also wan’t just a standard in-cabin pet because United requires those pets to fit within a kennel.
Boarding commenced and the woman took her seat: an aisle in EconomyPlus. And while the dog was very well-behaved, it took the floorspace of two seats when seated. That made for an awkward situation with the two passengers occupying the middle and window seats.
Sensing the discomfort of the other two passengers, a FA used her iPhone to view open seats, then moved the two passengers to other seats. One first class passenger did not check in, so the man across the aisle from me in the exit row scored a “battlefield upgrade”. That left his window seat and the middle seat next to him empty.
The couple were moved back a few rows to the exit row.
I’m sure the 1K seated on the aisle did not appreciate the open middle seat now occupied, but he had no ownership of it…
I liked that the FAs were proactive. I liked that the passengers who were moved actually received better seats. But my goodness, doesn’t this create a dangerous precedent? There was also a couple with a newborn baby seated nearby. I’m sure they would have appreciated a row to themselves.
It just seemed to me the passenger was rewarded for bringing on a dog that was too big.
What do you think?
If United would stop killing dogs we would check them in cargo.
Exactly. Lost in this discussion is that United kills about 2.5 dogs for every 10K they transport in cargo. Stop to think about that statistic for a moment. Would anybody put their children on flights if flying carried this sort of risk? Of course not. Other airlines are only marginally better.
The reality is that for many people — especially in the USA — pets are simply members of the family. Even if you don’t care for their pets (or their children) empathy for the legitimate feelings of others is called for. Unless and until transporting pets in cargo is reasonably safe — and it is now anything but — nobody should fault any passenger for doing what they need to in order to get their pet to their destination.
Much like people of size, she or anyone else in this situation should be charged for the space they are using. We’ve got to stop this animal madness on planes. If your dog can’t fit under the seat then it shouldn’t be flying in the cabin.
I think its a reasonable position to take that pets should pay to occupy their space on a plane, including purchasing a seat for them. The problem though is that no matter how much you are willing to pay, most airlines will not allow you to purchase a seat for your pet, and simply have blanket rules that animals that can’t fit under the seat are not allowed on the plane . . . unless of course they are a ESA, which is another reason why we have so many ESAs. If airlines were flexible, and would take people’s money to allow their pets aboard and occupy a seat, there would be far fewer ESAs.
Enough with the fake support animals. I have started questioning people with unmarked dogs, “what kind of service dog is that?”
tough talk from someone with sound mental health. Try walking in someone else’ shoes for 5 minutes before being a judgmental ass
Tony, you assume the passenger truly needed the support, which can never be assumed given the number of perfectly well people who abuse this.
And, nowadays, most people assume the passenger DOESN’T.
If the dog’s well trained, chances are IS a ESA. If it’s barking, running around, etc, more than likely not.
Hes right though! I actually know people like that who lie to get their pets deemed service animals! A girlfriend of mine actually said she has no need for it, she just likes taking her pet everywhere with her especially since her apt doesnt allow pets! There are more people than you think out there who lie everyday about their pets being actual service animals!
You have no legal right to ask anyone about their service dog or esa. If a esa is flying its a needed pet for some reason,a fake esa or sd cant fly without proper paper work from a dr.
No more pets on planes, period. If you can’t be separated from your animal then you should drive or not travel. This has gotten ridiculous.
I have personally been in a situation of being relocated to another continent . . . and eventually back. Should I have rented a submarine? Or should I have just rolled the dice and put the dog in cargo and hoped would all work out . . . at the risk of turning an already anxious move into a traumatic one for my entire family.
The problem with people like this is they assume that everybody is just like them, and can’t relate to other people in very different situations than them, and therefore can’t respect other people’s choices or values.
Do you think an entire cabin -hundreds of people- and an entire industry should be made to bend to your situation?
The vast majority of people are just like Lance. We don’t need a dog with us to take a flight. Why should your particular sensitivity burden so many other people?
Real questions, would like real answers.
I think sensitivity and burden to people who don’t like dogs on their flight is no more important than sensitivity and burden to people who don’t like children (or fat people, or obnoxious people, or people allergic to perfume, etc.) on their flights.
I think that as all resources are divided in a free economy, nobody should have to be forced to accept anything, but rather people should be able to freely exchange services for money, or be free to refrain from doing so. People should be able to purchase space for their pets, and airlines should be free to determine the price for that space. Many people would be happy to pay for a seat, but there is simply no way to do so as a result of the strange and nonsensical regulatory scheme.
Like most conflicts and market failures, this one is really caused not by airlines or passengers, but by over-regulation. The ESA and other FAA regulations, have entirely screwed up the incentives for passengers to pay for their pets, and for airlines to cater for them in a way which is profitable for them. Adding to this is that airlines have made themselves unaccountable in courts of law in the USA, cannot be sued at all for matters related to fares or services, and protected from having to pay proper damages stemming from their negligence in killing pets at an extremely alarming rate.
So until this problem is solved, and airlines are incentivized to offer cabin passage to pets, and no less importantly passengers are incentivized to pay for that space, the creation of ESAs will continue and this should surprise nobody.
If people were allowed to pay for actual seats for their pets this could create a cleaning problem during and after the flights. Pet hair, urine, feces are all possible in this scenario. What about turbulence?….are the airlines going to have to have two types of seat belts on each chair – one for humans and one for animals ? Can you just imagine a family with two or more kids and a dog all occupying seats….a picture is worth a thousand words.
You sound like a asshole i have severe anxiety when flying to the point i throw up the entire flight my esa helps keep me calmer and not vomit so much. We are flying from Hawaii to Georgia and she’ll be with me. Y’all complaining must hate pets. For all of you who know nothing about what a esa is for should mind your own bussines. If the dog is well behaved why do u care how much space they need?
And if they are moving across country, then what? It shouldn’t bother you unless they are climbing in your seat or being a nuisance! My 14 year old dog would die of stress being thrown under the plane like cargo! The loud noise, bumps, etc.. with no human there saying it’s okay. Just because I have bigger dogs I shouldn’t be allowed to fly when needed? My dogs are domesticated, couch potatoes, living, breathing family members! They are also more behaved than most peoples children! If you don’t like it then find an airline that isn’t pet friendly. That is why I’m on here, to find an airline that is!
As a lifetime owner of medium to large size dogs, and a lover of dogs as friends, I am just amazed that anyone would want to put up with the troubles, inconveniences, and surprises that would be caused by taking a larger dog on an airplane. No matter how well behaved my dogs are generally, I would never trust them in that situation, nor would I want to be responsible for the untoward incidents that would be likely to happen. It boggles the mind…
If you need the emotional support of an animal to fly you should stay home and not inside a metal tube at 30,000 feet for many hours. I would be very mad if I had to move seats because of a dog. Also, what would have happened if the plane was full? Would those guys have to fly all the way with a huge dog between their legs? Enough with this BS and leave these people and dogs home.
I really like the idea that an emotional support animal that can’t fit under the seat in front of you should be charged for the space it occupies. It’s probably not legal but it would be a good way to help end this scam.
That being said as far as I’m concerned emotional support animals should be barred period. Only properly trained and certified service animals and only for those who have done more than mail a check to the fake doc for their fake certificate.
Matthew your right that this creates a very real problem. Bring a large dog get your own row. What happens of course when the flight is full and their isn’t room for the pet?
Again emotional support animals need to be barred period.
..”if the flight is full and no room for the pet” ?……Oh that just means that the pet owner takes precedence and the other two people in the row are supposed to just sit there mute and passive (just like the guy on DL who practically had his face bitten off by a service animal in his row).
United!!!, stop allowing people to fly with emotional support animals. The only people flying with animals should be blind and visibly or mentally handicapped. Instead they shut down the cargo/kennel end of things until May 1st (to reassess) …..(where, really, rarely things went wrong) and lose millions of revenue (including animals of active service personnel) whose animals should be able to still be flown. Their priorities are so twisted over a dead dog’s death BY THE IRRESPONSIBLE PASSENGER who was too dim to take it out of the overhead bin immediately or even check on it inflight.
I guess responsibility and consideration OF OTHER PEOPLE is not part of the equation in today’s world. Just sneak your pets on (in wrong carriers) or call them service animals and all is well,…..everyone else be damned.
Hold on…blind AND visibly or mentally handicapped? Some disabilities aren’t visible. What about diabetes or epilepsy? Sometimes the most serious conditions are those that can’t be seen.
great work by the flight attendants.
While I’m not in favor of a wholesale ban of emotional support animals, how is the presence of a dog of that size in the cabin not a safety hazard?
no kidding… can’t have a laptop in my hand or a bag protruding slightly from the seat in front but a fucking massive dog at your feet is no problem.
This is one of the reasons I’ve stopped flying Southwest. In the past, I’ve paid for early boarding. However, flying home from Providence, RI; two friends (not mine – friends with each other), each with a support dog, were sitting cross-legged with their dogs on the floor. The big dog and the little dog got into a fracas, the big dog bit the little one, the little one yelped, and the little one’s owner immediately jumped in and separated them, and then inspected her little dog for damage – so clearly not a bit of over-rambunctious play. Fast forward a little, and as I’m boarding the plane, these two and their dogs were occupying the window and aisle of row 1, with the large dog occupying the middle seat floor space. I don’t know how that’s even legal as you’re not allowed to keep bags by your feet in that row. So, thanksgiving holiday weekend with near or totally full flights, these two somehow get early boarding (probably due to the ESAs as they were college students, at Brown no less, and apparently on the equestrian team judging by the sweatshirts) and a whole row to themselves, because they brought on emotional support dogs that fight with each other. Why pay for privileges like early boarding if they’re given away to the owners of fake service animals?
hahahaha Brown explained a lot of that
The equestrian team was also a favorite detail of mine. But nope, not entitled at all …
Has anyone seen someone needing an “emotional support” animal on a flight in Europe. If not, I rest my case.
Snowflakes much?
I just think its funny that somebody who is troubled by another human being’s desire to travel with their pet, is calling other people Snowflakes.
I’m sick of all the ignorant people who automatically assume that if someone is bringing a ESA on the plane then they are faking it. You are the same people who think all terrorists are muslin. Discrimination is discrimination. Mental health is a real disease and its not the passengers job to pass judgement.
Matthew, I still don’t understand why you keep writing articles like this. You wouldn’t be writing it if this was a blind person with a service animal or if the airline moved passengers to accommodate a paraplegic. You tend to write a majority of the boardingarea pet stories but i think you fail to realize that they are used to treat different conditions. Passengers with mental health issues who lack physical disabilities use a ESA while passengers with physical disabilities use a service animal. You can read the difference on the VA website. I hope this is a case of you being misinformed and not an actual bias on your part which is what I can infer from your articles.
It’s because of the documented abuse that ESAs have triggered. Sure, some need it.
But when a system is abused and used by the wrong people, it hurts everyone who actually needs it (see: food stamps, legal immigration, workers comp, etc.). And when the rate of abuse is so high, something has to change.
When I lived in a university dorm, I got my cat registered as an ESA by taking a pic of it and paying a guy $25 online. And yes, I could have used that “certificate” to fly with it. That is STUPID and if you think that’s not how the vast majority of animals in cabin are flying, you’re delusional.
Matt, I couldn’t agree more that some people abuse the system of ESA’s and I support the move by the big airlines to enforce tighter standards on documentation. Its absurd when people say if you can’t fly without your ESA then you shouldn’t fly. People wouldn’t question a veteran with a service dog who is missing a leg but they automatically assume the veteran with PTSD using a ESA is faking it. The bottom line is that you don’t actually know how many people are faking it and your delusional if think you can just look at someone and say they don’t need an ESA (excluding the peacock publicity story). I’m a healthcare provider with years of experience in mental health and I can’t tell without doing a proper assessment.
@ James…….Stop calling it bias…..another overused term as a copout.
UA and DL (combined) flew over 100,000 people last year who had “Emotional” support animals with them – none of it paid for. All of a sudden it’s an epidemic? Never heard of this in the industry ten years ago, now everyone is a mental cripple and can’t go out of their houses without a pet under their arm ? If these people are so damaged/ distraught/ uptight/ shaky/ etc. then maybe they could snap/become very dangerous to other people in a confined space at 35,000 feet ? Maybe they should just stay home if they can’t be around people ? Don’t healthcare providers prescribe medications for mentally ill people ? If you (in healthcare) can’t assess it, then why should I be automatically, passively accepting these passengers as true emotionally damaged people ?
Maybe the woman had an emotional support Doberman in case someone tried to drag her off the plane?
But seriously, I was very nearly attacked by a Doberman in my teens. Fortunately the owner intervened just before I became dog food. Scared me within an inch of my life. And I remain very wary toward such dogs.
Heresy alert: I am not a dog person. I don’t like their slobber, I don’t like their hair, I don’t like it when they’re “just being friendly.” I don’t like them. I’m OK with other people having pets. If that’s your thing, go ahead. But in a confined space, one person’s emotional support animal is causing me serious emotional upset.
Bottom line: if I see someone in the boarding area with a Doberman, I’m not getting on that plane, and I’m telling the gate agent exactly why.
A little overly dramatic? The doberman from your teens was probably just being friendly.
The doberman from my teens tried to kill me..jumped thru a screen door..so no..dobermans aren’t service dogs nor would I sit on a crowded plane with an uncaged doberman
A few weeks ago, I flew UA IAD-BDL, in the boarding area was a woman with a medium size dog, dog wearing Service Animal vest, yet dog was jumping all over the owner, straining at its leash, and sniffing people……clearly NOT a trained service animal.
For those pro “ESA” folks, until you have been attacked by a dog, please don’t tell me how to “feel” about allowing pets on planes.
The doberman from my teens tried to kill me..jumped thru a screen door..so no..dobermans aren’t service dogs nor would I sit on a crowded plane with an uncaged doberman
the same thing happened to my mom when she was a kid. however, my dad had always wanted a dobe; but she managed to keep him from getting one until us kids were all over 12 years old. that’s when we rescued our boy Jess from someone who raises show dogs–he had an abnormal fur pattern making him not “show material”, but otherwise no issues.
my family has always had multiple dogs, but Jess will always have a special place in our hearts. everyone that meets him wants to take him home, he’s the most gentle and loving dog you’ll ever see.
i think that the issue used to be people raised them to be guard dogs, but that doesn’t mean they’re genetically agressive. him and my mom sleep in the same bed together every night, as they’ve had for the past 7 years.
i’m really sorry that happened to you. i don’t want to negate your experience at all; i genuinely believe it. yet at the same time, it would make me sad if you were always afraid of them moving forward.
This is why FA’s should not be rearranging seating. All this does is start a firestorm about who is moved to better seating — F-Class ?? Go get the gate agent, it’s their job. Maybe the woman with the doberman should have been moved to the last row and put those last-row people up in economy plus – then give her a refund for the economy plus seat (difference). You want your dog and all the floor space hogging ?….sit in the back row and fight for your refund. I’m sick of people getting the upper hand by virtue of having a service animal. Why do dozens of other passengers have to be discombobulated for one passenger? As well, just by this article, there’s already debate about “what about the couple with the baby?”, what about other high-status passengers that should have gotten the battleground upgrade to F-class? See where this leads? People who need emotional support animals should stay home and take medication. Years ago this “ailment” did not exist. People took Xanax and a stiff drink – somehow they got through the “horror” of flying and being near other people without an animal to soothe them.
I’m so tired of this! I bought a first class ticket over the phone over Xmas only first row was available. The ticket was a hefty price. They warned me that I had a fair chance of losing my seat to an emotional pet owner when I booked. I shared my dismay if this were to happen. I t actually did happen but to the couple on the other side of the aisle. I now have taken notice on the numerous flight I have taken since and have calculated that emotional pets have been in the front row if first class approximately 59% of my flights since. This is a dis gusting unfair practice to those of us who actually buy the tickets and are scared of large dogs in closed places as I have been bitten once on face and attacked by a large dog in an elevator.
I thought delta fixed this issue of fake emotional pets. I have seen so many people break the rules including a woman take 2 dogs into the bathroom followed by a man who went in there unknowingly who was major allergic to dogs and whose throat closed on the descent. I also saw a German Shepard in first row of corach growl at an flight attendant foaming at mouth. It was only when the passenger himself went mental that they kicked him off the flight yelling at her that ‘if she didn’t have such a bad attitude his dog wouldn’t be fosming’’ when will Airlines stop encouragj passengers to break the rules! Allowing an automatic upgrade to first is JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE
A fundamental issue with this article is the misconception that service animals are required to have visible ID.
If you don’t know a basic fact on service working-animal identification, if you don’t even know what you’re looking at how can we expect that you would know anything at all about the vital services these animals provide.
That dog could have either been an ESA or a service dog. Either is valid. But the lack of general knowledge is glaring.
You’re wrong. This was far too large to be a service animal.
Service animals come in all shapes and sizes. There is no certification or registry. They are simply required to preform a specific task to mitigate that persons disability.
It is disgusting that people abuse these laws to take their pet with them everywhere they go. It ruins it for the people who actually rely on these animals every day.
as someone with an ESA that’s currently in training to be a service dog, I can confirm that what my (almost!) name-twin said is true.