Fair fowl, or just plain foul?

THE DEBATE OVER EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS ON PLANES

- Damien Martin

You board your plane. Behind you comes a dog in a service vest leading another passenger. A few more passengers go by before you spot someone carrying a cat. More people board. You help someone put a carry-on in the overhead bin, and out of the corner of your eye you spot a mini horse ambling down the aisle. Then a peacock. Then a pig that soon defecates, stinking up the whole plane. You think to yourself, “Is this Noah’s Ark or my flight to Chicago?”

OK, so it’s unlikely there’s been a single flight exactly like that. But all those examples are real instances of emotional support animals on planes. Yes, even the pig. A proposal from the US Department of Transportation would curb these practices dramatically. The proposal seeks to limit the definition of service animals to dogs “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.” No longer would emotional support animals qualify as service animals. That doesn’t mean other animals would be banned outright, but they’d be classified as pets, and it would be up to individual airlines to decide whether your furry, feathered, or scaly friend gets on the plane, and how much you’ll pay for the privilege.

The proposal, on which USDOT is accepting comment until March 22, addresses a controversy that has taken flight in recent years, with proponents of emotional support animals arguing the animals serve a legitimate and important purpose, and detractors complaining of nuisance and absurdity.

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The concept of emotional support animals has been widely mocked. In 2018, a Popeyes location in the Philadelphia airport marketed “emotional support chicken.” Last December, a Brooklyn man registered a beer as an emotional support animal with the USA Service Dog Registration.