Southwest airline officially bans emotional support animals. Since last year, major airlines started placing bans on traveling with emotional support animals. Southwest is officially the 4th and the last of the "Big 4" airlines to make the move. Although trained service dogs are still allowed to travel in airline cabins.
Quite a number of animals fly every year. Delta reported that in 2017 they transported 250,000 emotional support and service dogs. The first major airline that placed the ban was Alaska, they hold the position of number 5 by market share. They announced the ban on December 29, 2020. American followed suit and made its announcement on January 5. Next was Delta, on January 7, and United quickly followed on January 8.
Southwest held back on the announcement for weeks giving hope to emotional service animal advocates. By the delay, they hoped that Southwest might follow a different route from their competitors. "Our emotional support animals policy has not changed," a spokesperson from Southwest told a reporter. Contrary to their previous statement, on January 25, they announced a ban on emotional support animals. They referred to the move as a "policy enhancement".
According to this new policy, the only animals that Southwest would classify as service animals would be trained dogs with proper documentation.
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Emotional Support Animals
According to AKC, emotional support animals are dogs and pets that provide emotional support and comfort to their owners daily. For an animal to be considered an ESA legally, it must be prescribed by a health professional that tends to mental ailments like a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist.
They differ from service dogs, in the sense that service dogs perform specified tasks and follow their owner about. ESA's are not particularly trained although they are expected to be of good behavior while in public. ESAs may be barred from entering various establishments like malls, but service dogs are.
Actions That Prompted The Ban
Although this definition by AKC is clear, some individuals have taken advantage of the process and abused the rules. Emotional support animals are still allowed in some establishments but airlines began to ban them because of some incidents like a flight attendant being bitten.
So far, more than 80 organizations have agreed to ban ESA's. "Emotional support animals can be untrained, whereas service animals are not" a group claimed. According to them these untrained ESA's can include animals like ducks, pigs, and peacocks.
The press poured added more fire to the movement and released articles about fake emotional support dogs, ESA's posing a danger to the public and the likes. The airlines wanted to push the Department of Transportation to define ESA's as dogs trained to work and perform tasks for people with disabilities. This definition was coined from the Americans with Disabilities Act.
About 15,000 comments were gathered from airlines, flight attendants, people with disabilities, etc. This gained the attention of the DOT and they agreed that the information provided by the airline was persuasive. According to them, animals people labelled emotional support animals cause a significant amount of animal misbehavior while onboard.
If you're wondering how people with documented ESA's would fly, American airlines listed three choices "don't fly, leave the animal at home or pay for your pet". These pets can however travel as carry-on pets or cargo pets if they meet the requirement.
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