Photo: Ken Dodds/Flickr
It sounds like the kind of riddle you’d find in the back pages of Highlights magazine, but what’s the quickest way to make pigs fly? Register them as emotional support animals. After a consultation with a mental health professional (even an online one) and a one-time fee of between $70 and $200, your pet pig (or rabbit or kangaroo or even a boring dog or cat) can become an emotional support animal, which means that they can fly with you in the airplane cabin, and there’s no charge to take them as your traveling companions.
Although that’s good news for anyone who actually does require an animal to provide comfort or reduce anxiety (and a fear of flying is one of the reasons why your pet might qualify for its own ESA vest), it’s even better news to someone who might consider scamming the system by using an ESA designation to allow them to save on the pet fees (which range from $75 to $125 each way) that airlines charge, as well as allowing their otherwise oversized dogs or regular-sized pigs to sit with them for the duration of the flight. Laura Glading, the president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, told CBS News:
I don’t really want to brush with a broad brush everyone who has an emotional support animal. They can be very, very helpful […] I think a lot has to do with not having to pay, a way to bring your pet along and it’s really gotten out of hand.
So is this legal? Yes, totally. The Air Carrier Access Act says that airlines must “must permit a service animal to accompany a passenger with a disability,” a guideline that includes ESAs, provided that the passenger provides documentation from a licensed mental health professional explaining why the animal is necessary. There are no Department of Transportation rules that dictate what kinds of animals are considered to be Emotional Support Animals, but the Air Carrier Access Act does state that airlines “are never required to accommodate certain unusual service animals (e.g., snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders) as service animals in the cabin.”
Last fall, New Yorker writer Patricia Marx attempted to see how far she and her admittedly dubious (and increasingly exotic) Emotional Support Animals could go. She was allowed to take a 4 1/2 foot tall alpaca on an Amtrak trip (which is interesting since neither cats nor dogs are currently allowed on its trains) and a pig named Daphne (“who, at twenty-six pounds, is six pounds heavier than the average carry-on baggage allowance,” she wrote) on a JetBlue flight from Newark to Boston.
The pig appears to be the Go-To Mammal to see how lenient an airline will be when it comes to accommodating ESAs. CBS News flew one of its own from Pennsylvania to Charlotte without incident. But last December, United kicked one 80 pound Emotional Support Porker off a flight after the animal “howled” and pooped in the aisle before the plane left the gate.
So what do the airlines themselves say? Pretty much the same thing, across the board. All of them do require very specific documentation from a medical professional that must be dated within a year of the departure date, and they do allow the animals to sit in the cabin without being crated or kenneled. In addition:
- American Airlines: Requires passengers with emotional support animals to confirm their situation with Reservations 48 hours before flying, adding that passengers and their ESAs must check in one hour before the general public. It also notes that the animal “cannot exhibit any disruptive behavior or pose a threat to other passengers or animals.”
- Delta: Allows emotional support animals in the cabin but notes that “the animal must be trained to behave properly in public settings as service animals do.”
- JetBlue: The only carrier that specifically repeats the Air Carrier Access Act’s restriction on “unusual animals (i.e. snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents and spiders).”
- Southwest: Requires documentation of the animal’s ESA status but does not allow any animals – ESAs, service animals or otherwise – to travel to or from Jamaica “due to country-specific restrictions.”
- US Airways: Also requires passengers traveling with their ESAs to call its reservations line at least 48 hours in advance.
- United: Passengers with ESAs must notify the airline’s Disability Desk no less than 48 hours before departure.