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© Unsplash / Ryan Stone
Ban on emotional support animals on airplanes affects people with legitimate mental disabilities
“Emotional support animals (AES) are no longer covered by the Air Carrier Access Act,” I heard on local news playing in the background. As soon as I saw the headline to confirm what I had heard, I stopped everything I was doing and grabbed my phone to call my mom, who travels with an ESA wherever she goes. Concerns filled my head as the phone rang. “What if something happens to her during the flight and our dog isn’t there? How will she be able to fly safely and comfortably? Will we have to do our entire road trip now?”
These are major concerns that people with ESA are currently grappling with in light of the latest revision of the Air Carrier Access Act. In this revision, which will come into effect 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register, the Department of Transportation says that airlines are “not required to recognize emotional support animals as service animals and may treat them as. pets. ” This comes in response to the increase in service animal fraud – when airline passengers claim their pets as certified service animals in order to avoid additional charges. Flying a pet in the cabin can get expensive, as it requires you to pay $ 125 or more (depending on the airline) for each leg of your flight. The easiest way to get around this problem is to pretend your pet is a service animal, and people unfortunately get away with it all the time. Buying “official” documents and service vests from websites like CertaPet is easier than ever, and it got to a point where people have brought pigs, ostriches and Shetland ponies with them on. their flights. This is an exploitation of the Air Carrier Access Act, and because the Department of Transport is now cracking down on its regulations, it hurts passengers like my mom who have a legitimate need to fly with a support animal.
Video: US Department of Transportation revises rule on emotional support animals on flights (ABC News)
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Since we have our dog, she is also my mother’s ESA. Through years and years of behavioral psychotherapy, hospitalization, and constantly getting in and out of the suicidal ideation department, a certified emotional support dog has been by my mom’s side through it all – a dog that has been everything. as essential as any prescription drug, which can keep her safe when there is no other family around to understand the unpredictable nuances of her behavior.
Service animals undergo different training than emotional support animals, but both are equally essential to their owners and both provide much needed and often vital assistance. Not all disabilities are visible. Just because someone “doesn’t look” disabled doesn’t mean they aren’t. Because my mother suffers from a mental rather than a physical disability, I fear the airlines will deny her (and legally cannot) deny her the right to travel with the ESA which has legitimately been prescribed for her and for which she has appropriate documents.
When there are people who literally buy service vests for their pets from Amazon and get away with an emotional support rattlesnake on board, it makes sense that the Department of Transportation wants to tighten the defined gaps. in the Air Carrier Access Act. . But it would have made much more sense to establish stricter regulations and clearer guidelines for certification, rather than excluding AES entirely from the Air Carrier Access Act. People don’t need emotional support animals just “to cope with the stress of the flight,” as the Travel Department continues to naively comment. I can say for sure that my dog does a lot more for my mom than relieving her stress, and frankly he’s ignorant to assume that’s what an ESA is. ESAs support every stage of their material handler’s life, and for my family, air travel is one of them.
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