Delta Moves To Curb Fake Service & Support Animals On Board

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If you ask US road warriors to list out the things that annoy them the most when they fly most of them will put unruly fake support animals down somewhere on their list.

Because the Air Carriers Access Act requires airlines to provide in-cabin travel for for service and support animals without charge, the number of animals seen onboard domestic flights had ballooned out of proportion and a lot of us suspect that a large percentage of these animals are neither genuine service animals or genuine support animals.

Apparently Delta agrees.

In a statement issued today Delta said that, from 1 March 2018, it will be introducing new rules governing the transportation of animals in the cabin.

This is what the airline has said:

Delta Air Lines is taking steps to further protect its customers, employees and service and support animals by implementing advance documentation requirements for those animals. This comes as a result of a lack of regulation that has led to serious safety risks involving untrained animals in flight. The new requirements support Delta’s top priority of ensuring safety for its customers, employees and trained service and support animals, while supporting the rights of customers with legitimate needs, such as disabled veterans, to travel with trained animals.

Delta carries approximately 700 service or support animals daily — nearly 250,000 annually. Putting this into perspective, Delta carries more than 180 million passengers annually. Customers have attempted to fly with comfort turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more. Ignoring the true intent of existing rules governing the transport of service and support animals can be a disservice to customers who have real and documented needs. Delta has seen an 84 percent increase in reported animal incidents since 2016, including urination/defecation, biting and even a widely reported attack by a 70-pound dog. In 2017, Delta employees reported increased acts of aggression (barking, growling, lunging and biting) from service and support animals, behavior not typically seen in these animals when properly trained and working.

So what is Delta planning to do about this?

From 1 March 2018 passengers wishing to travel with a service or an emotional support/psychiatric service animal “will be required to present a signed Veterinary Health Form and/or an immunization record (current within one year of the travel date) for their animal to Delta’s Service Animal Support Desk via Delta.com at least 48 hours in advance of travel.”

Passengers traveling with an emotional support animal or psychiatric service animal will also have to provide a signed Confirmation of Animal Training form to Delta’s Service Animal Support Desk via Delta.com at least 48 hours in advance of travel.

This last rule is in addition to the existing requirement for those traveling with an emotional support animal to provide a letter, prepared and signed by a doctor or licensed mental health professional, certifying their need to travel with the animal.

Delta says that these new rules are to “help ensure that those customers traveling with a trained service or support animal will no longer be at risk of untrained pets attacking their working animal”

Thoughts

While I applaud Delta for leading the way in trying to deal with the whole emotional support animal situation I’m not sure just how much good these rules will do.

If people can already provide formal letters that suggest they need to bring a comfort turkey/gliding possum/ snake/spider on board then how hard will it be for them to produce documentary evidence that their animal is trained? Probably not very hard at all.

Until there is some sort of serious penalty for bringing a fake service/support animal on board I can’t see too much changing…or am I being to pessimistic?

Featured image courtesy of Wiki Commons Media