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US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

bbc.com

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Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#41

Post by dash2 »

devteambravo wrote: post #6
onetimemanytime wrote: post #2

not to be jerk or anything, but if I said that a cow or an elephant is the only thing that soothes me so accommodate them in a plane? How many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?

So let's just make assumptions then. Disabled people should have a case prepared, and always be ready to argue it in front of people. Upon challenge, by people "inconvenienced" by your accommodations, you should be able to spend 2 minutes showcasing your disability, how it came to be, and plead for said accommodations. Maybe you could edit that "not to be a jerk" bit to "I'm a jerk, hence:".

To be clear about this, your argument is that a disabled person should be able to say "I need an elephant on this plane" without having to explain why? Also, disagreeing with this point of view makes someone a jerk? :-)

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#42

Post by vectorphresh »

A clear example of “This is why we can’t have nice things”, if ever there was one. This definitely sucks from a consumer point of view, but understandable when the focus becomes passenger safety. Service dog training can be verified and as such abusers can be filtered out of consideration.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#43

Post by maxk42 »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #2

not to be jerk or anything, but if I said that a cow or an elephant is the only thing that soothes me so accommodate them in a plane? How many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?

Well the laws here are really stupid. ESAs are not covered under federal law. But service animals are. However - there is no accreditation program for service animals, so you cannot ask for proof that an animal is a service animal. You are also not allowed to ask a person what their disability is or demand they demonstrate some sort of proof of either disability or specialized training in their animal. So essentially, anyone can still claim any animal is a service animal and the airlines have to accommodate them. The ESA designation is NOT a service animal (although a service animal can also be an ESA). So this is something the airlines could easily disallow. I'm afraid we haven't seen the last of people abusing the system for their own convenience, however.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#44

Post by Ansil849 »

I'm finding a lot of the comments in this thread to be hurtful. Yes, many were abusing the system to register pets as service animals. No, that is not a reason to forbid the practice which was genuinely helpful to people like myself who have a phobia of flying coupled with anxiety and having a service animal genuinely helps get through a flight without the need for medication. The problem is the desire to not devote resources to verifying the legitimacy of individual claims and instead banning the practice wholesale. Honestly, why make a mockery of this? Chastise people who are obviously trolling or scamming the system.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#45

Post by llbeansandrice »

hpoe wrote: post #5

So something I only recently found out myself is that there is actual no real requirements in order to register an animal as an "emotional support animal", I found that out after my sister registered her dog as an emotional support animal to get around her apartments "no pets allowed" rule. Another interesting thing is that I have a friend who builds apartments in a college town for students. The apartments for years…

A bit of conflation in some of the comments but the "issue" is a bit of a loophole in the ADA. The ADA basically tries to minimize the burden of having a disability. So there are no licensing fees or registration or anything related to having a service animal by the government and as such businesses, landlords, etc. can't ask for something like a license or registration of a service animal as verification.

The key difference between an "emotional support animal" and a legitimate service animal is that service animals have training that directly assists with the person's disability. Easy examples are seeing-eye dogs, dogs that are trained to smell/detect low blood sugar in diabetics, and dogs that are trained to protect their owner if they have a seizure or similar.

Emotional support animals are just...emotional support and aren't trained to really do anything.

It seems like businesses were just too scared to go to battle over people bringing their pets places for fear of being accused of violating the ADA.

To be clear, I think emotional support animals are ridiculous, but the "no registration/license" piece is a very critical part of the ADA. Finally, businesses are allowed to ask what tasks a service animal has been trained to do as verification and that allowance doesn't even extend to service animals in training.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#46

Post by sethammons »

pb77 wrote: post #32

I remember a radio host ranting that in his flight there was a lady with a pony as an emotional support animal, there was also a joke about a guy who registered a swarm of bees as emotional support animal. I wonder if that was the case that forced these emotional support animal in planes.

There was a lady in my hometown who had a shetland pony and took the city bus with it. It was quite the double take when I saw a horse getting off a city bus!

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#47

Post by TulliusCicero »

DanBC wrote: post #4
onetimemanytime wrote: post #2

not to be jerk or anything, but if I said that a cow or an elephant is the only thing that soothes me so accommodate them in a plane? How many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?

Adjustments for disabled people need to be "reasonable". It's reasonable for a blind person to take their guide dog on a plane. It's reasonable for someone with mental illness to take their well trained support animal on the plane. It's unreasonable for someone who's struggling a bit to take their pet cow on a plane.

Who decides what's reasonable, though?

The whole thing is a big grey area. The rules should be explicit.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#48

Post by MereInterest »

devteambravo wrote: post #6
onetimemanytime wrote: post #2

not to be jerk or anything, but if I said that a cow or an elephant is the only thing that soothes me so accommodate them in a plane? How many other people should be inconvenienced by my issues?

So let's just make assumptions then. Disabled people should have a case prepared, and always be ready to argue it in front of people. Upon challenge, by people "inconvenienced" by your accommodations, you should be able to spend 2 minutes showcasing your disability, how it came to be, and plead for said accommodations. Maybe you could edit that "not to be a jerk" bit to "I'm a jerk, hence:".

Please read up on the term "Invisible Disabilities". Not every disability is obvious, not every disability is immediately provable to satisfy an adhoc request, and not every disability has immediate effects. Your suggestion would lead to people being further marginalized, if every person feels that they can barge in for 2 minutes each. Add up more and more people each stealing away 2 minutes, and that is quite a lot of time.

How would that even work, too? If a random person decides that somebody's disability doesn't exist, do they then just barge in even more than usual. "I decided that your coeliac disease didn't exist, so I used wheat as a thickener. Your fault for not explaining it better."

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#49

Post by masklinn »

pb77 wrote: post #32

I remember a radio host ranting that in his flight there was a lady with a pony as an emotional support animal, there was also a joke about a guy who registered a swarm of bees as emotional support animal. I wonder if that was the case that forced these emotional support animal in planes.

> I remember a radio host ranting that in his flight there was a lady with a pony as an emotional support animal

TBF miniature horses can genuinely be not just ESA but service animals. They're the only legal alternative to dogs for service animals.

Re: US ends era of emotional support animals on planes

#50

Post by llbeansandrice »

henrikschroder wrote: post #18
brightball wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The thing that bothered me more than anything about this is that you aren't allowed to ask for any type of verification, so people can just walk in with them anywhere. Never made sense to me. At least to park in a handicap space you need a hang tag or a special license plate. Why not something simple like a special collar tag or card in your wallet?

You are absolutely allowed to ask for verification that an animal is a real service animal, but the people who have been conflating emotional support animals with service animals want you to believe that you can't. Service animals have to be licensed, trained to perform a task or duty, and be easily identifiable. Misrepresenting an untrained and unlicensed animal as a service animal is fraud and illegal.

> Service animals have to be licensed

In the US this is not true by the ADA as licensing is a pretty prohibitive cost for many people with disabilities.

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