[STORMIN']

I recently flew Miami / Bogotá by American in Business. Like most people, I suspect, I opted for Business for a bit more comfort, privacy and the better opportunity of doing some work. I was fortunate enough to secure Seat 1A, or so I thought. Shortly after settling in, I was joined in the seat next to me by a young lady with a small dog. The dog had a cover strapped to it with the words “emotional support dog” or words to that effect.

We didn’t get off to a good start as the lady asked me to swap seats so that her dog could have more space on the floor in the corner. When I declined, she got the hump. After take off, she put her pillow on the floor and lay the dog on it. This flight returns to Miami after a short turn-around in Bogotá and I am certain that the pillows or their cases are not replaced during the turn-around. Therefore the unlucky occupant of that seat on the return will have a pillow that has been used by a dog on the outbound. Nice!!

This lady showed no signs of needing any emotional support at all as she got stuck in to the booze, watched films on her iPad and tucked into the food. Whilst eating, she had the dog on her lap and its head lay on the armrest between us, eyeing up my food. I did politely ask the lady if she would move the dog away from my food but this fell on deaf ears.

I later spoke to the senior flight attendant about the unacceptability, in my eyes, of having to tolerate this situation after shelling out for a Business Class seat. He told me that these people are the bane of flight attendant’s lives and that many of them use the “emotional support” thing as an excuse to get their pooch on board with them rather than having to pay extra to ship them in the hold. I was told that representations have been made internally to American management by the flight attendants but to no avail.

In future, I will now scan the Gate area to see whether it includes any livestock and if it does I will check with the Gate Agent that it’s not sitting next to me.

6 users thanked author for this post.

Seat62k, Poshgirl58, EU_Flyer, woodyhoo, BugAdvisor, fqtvgla

[fqtvgla]

Some people are allergic to dogs (their hair). I can absolutely see this being used by selfish people who do not want to pay for their dog to go in the hold.

[GivingupBA]

Very good rant/ story, STORMIN’, with lots of detail. So sorry to hear it happened to you. And you were absolutely right in my opinion to speak to the senior flight attendant about it.

But now – how to stop cabins being flooded with unneeded “emotional support animals”?? I foresee this issue getting bigger.

[Ahmad]

The day they start allowing “livestock” into the cabin (no matter what the pretext), I will seriously start considering alternative modes of transportation.

[nevereconomy]

Thankfully it does seem to only happen in the US. I suppose it is understandable that they are more emotionally disturbed than anyone else, for a variety of reasons.
I think there needs to be a ban on anything but animals that actually help their owner make the journey – guide dogs for instance. If you are just too insecure to fly,
then maybe you need to stay home and not inflict Rover on the rest of us. As an aside, I had a most enjoyable AA flight in F with two active military and their bomb dogs (think I am correct there) who were allowed to sit where they liked and had a wonderful time jumping form seat to seat (dogs that is) – there were only a couple of other passengers. Given what they are doing for us, I found all that quite acceptable.

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Poshgirl58, Montysaurus, TiredOldHack2, TupeloKid, tomwjsimpson, PeterCoultas

[capetonianm]

Many animals behave better and are better company than many so-called human beings.

As Oscar Wilde (allegedly) said : “The more I see of some people, the better I like my dog.”

6 users thanked author for this post.

Montysaurus, TiredOldHack2, AFlyingDutchman, biguli76, tomwjsimpson, BugAdvisor

[Poshgirl58]

There have been well-publicised accounts of passengers bringing various “emotional support” animals on board. Apart from dogs and cats there’s pigs, miniature horses, rabbits. If the Daily Mail is to be believed, there’s been a peacock and a turkey. A rat apparently met an unfortunate end, as it was not included on the owner’s booking. The reports of it being flushed down the toilet have since been denied.

It’s now widely used in the US to avoid paying the high cost of placing an animal in the hold.

Plenty of pictures on the net. Haven’t heard any reports, but one day someone will take a kangaroo…..

1 user thanked author for this post.

biguli76

[bluemooner]

[postquote quote=977650][/postquote]

…..and they will fly on HOP……

3 users thanked author for this post.

Poshgirl58, TiredOldHack2, tomwjsimpson

[FrDougal]

Surely humans are “livestock” too!

[TupeloKid]

[postquote quote=977665][/postquote]

“Self loading cattle” is how I understand some cabin staff refer to passengers.

[traveldoc1]

“Aeroflot bans fat cat smuggler” – and removes all his air miles!!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50398672

[CS KOK]

You are lucky it was not an emotional support giraffe

2 users thanked author for this post.

Poshgirl58, EU_Flyer

[SimonS1]

The OP’s definition of livestock clearly differs to the dictionary one.

As for floods of emotional support animals, well I can remember one in 30+ years of regular travel so I would say it’s a non story really. The OP was right to address it at the time.

[canucklad]

[quote quote=977665]Surely humans are “livestock” too![/quote]

You are if you flying “Y” on one of Air Canada’s cattle class cabins on their 777’s —- mooooo !!

1 user thanked author for this post.

AFlyingDutchman

[AFlyingDutchman]

I agree with SimonS1 in that I have been flying for so many years, and have actually only seen Emotional Support animals on board maybe 3 times in my life. The last one was on an American flight from Chicago to Charlotte in First Class, the elderly lady had a beautiful Cocker Spaniel with her, paid for the seat next to her for the dog, and the dog had a special harness on with some official emblem that stated the animal was an Emotional Support animal (ESA emblem). While I have no doubt some people will try anything to avoid paying for things, I always thought one would need an offical ‘prescription’ from a recognised doctor and from a vet declaring one’s need for such and animal with them, and that said animal was in fact for emotional support. Or can one just declare the need and an airline accepts it?

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Poshgirl58, EU_Flyer

[Author]

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