On Friday January 19, Delta Air Lines announced that it was "tightening its rules for transporting service and support animals in an effort to reduce misbehavior by dogs and other creatures." Support animals are specially trained to assist people with disabilities and emotional support animals provide comfort and companionship to their owners (training not required). By law, air carriers are required to allow service animals on board. This policy is by far the most demanding among other carriers as it asks for documentation about the animal's health and promise of good conduct starting March 1, 2018, largely due to people attempting "to fly with comfort turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more.”
After reading this article, I kinda understand why Delta Air Lines have decided to increase the rules for service and support animals, but I feel like most of the people who do carry animals on board depend on them, hence should not be restricted to bringing them. With the Disabilities Act in place, Delta Air Lines are about to get troubled waters.
What do you guys think of this new regulation? Can it potentially violate the Disabilities Act? Is Delta Air Lines taking this issue way too far?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/business/delta-airlines-service-animals.html
8 comments:
This new regulation is Delta Air Line's attempt to balance the needs of those who fly with their pets and the comfort of the passengers without pets. This issue requires looking at the definition of what a disability is. The ADA defines a disability as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities" (ADA.gov). If the people that are attempting to fly with turkeys, possums, snakes, spiders and other creatures could fly with something else that could comfort them, then Delta Air Line's new regulation is justified in that they are just trying to prevent abuse of the policy. However, their new restrictions must be reasonable in order to avoid violating the Disabilities Act.
Many individuals rely on their animals for health support whether it's health or emotional support. Delta Airlines, in my opinion, is not taking this too far because it is important to ensure that any animal will not cause a disturbance on the plane or cause other passengers to be uncomfortable. Delta reported that there was an 84% increase in animal incidents which include biting, barking, and urinating, which is especially unpleasant when flying. Tightening restrictions ultimately prevents unsafe conditions from occurring. While this can potentially violate the Disabilities Act, those who do need animals should have them for a specific purpose. Service animals are trained to perform a certain task and if people are bringing animals that do not perform any task, they are abusing the rules.
I think it is very interesting that Delta Airlines is trying to be a little stricter with which animals qualify as support animals. Where I work (at Starbucks) we are supposed to just take people at their word that their animal is a service animal. We cannot do anything to stop someone from bringing an animal into the store (even if it is being a nuisance, or even a health safety concern) as soon as the owner declares the animal to be a service animal. They are not required to present any kind of evidence that the animal is actually a service animal. While I understand how difficult it would be for people with legitimate need for a service animal to have to present evidence to anyone who asked, I have no respect for people who take advantage of that policy to bring untrained animals into food service places, and apparently on airlines as well. It is a safety issue. People with disabilities are now having to pay for the sins of those who took advantage of previously open guidelines for service animals. That is extremely irritating to me. Delta Airlines did what it needed to do to ensure the safety of all of its passengers, but they would not have needed to if people hadn't tried to take advantage of the system in the first place.
I think Delta Air Lines shouldn't restrict rules for support animals. Instead they should probably schedule planes that are for people comfortable with riding with animals and planes for those who absolutely cannot be around animals due to allergies or preference. I believe that would be a better alternative that improves customer satisfaction and does not violate the Disabilities Act. With their current decision to tighten the rules, I believe they will receive negative reactions from the public in the near future.
I agree with what Kalena says that Delta is not taking this too far because it is to ensure safety. I believe that as long as Delta doesn't violate the Disabilities Act and lets people with disabilities bring on their well behaved helping animals, then this rule is okay. Delta claims that there have been many incidents due to the misbehavior of some animals, and if this regulation can help make for a safer flight than I believe it is for the better. Because if people are bringing on "turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more," it can become bothersome to other passengers.
I agree with the comments above in that Delta Air Lines request is justified. I would not want to be sitting next to someone on a plane while the pet their spider out of comfort. Passengers are usually agitated enough going onto a long flight, and having "turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more," is not needed on a plane if it could be prevented.
Emotional support animals are an excuse to bring pets in places where they shouldn't be allowed. Because they require no training, they actually make things worse for people with disabilities, as emotional support animals being disobedient sometimes causes institutions to limit legitimate service animals. So long as it's only emotional support animals that are being limited, rather than trained support animals, I doubt it would infringe upon the rights of the disabled, and Delta is definitely acting within their right.
I do think Delta Airlines is making a fair request. They should make a separate planes for their animals like their "possums" and "turkeys." People who want to bring these animals need to think about others on the plane and how uncomfortable they would feel.
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