Can You Travel With Two Emotional Support Animals

Emotional support dogs can fly, simply only with proper paperwork and other airline-imposed requirements. Credit: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images

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UPDATE: Dec. thirty, 2020, 10:59 a.grand. PST Later the U.Due south. Section of Transportation ruled earlier this calendar month that emotional back up animals are no longer considered service animals, some airlines are changing policies. Alaska Airlines was the first carrier to ban emotional support animals, starting in 2021.

This story was originally published in 2018, merely has been updated to reverberate airline rules equally they stand up as of Dec. 2020.

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Emotional support animals are becoming common sights on airplanes. Nosotros've seen pigs fly, and miniature horses as doctor-sanctioned animal companions. And then peacocks go the shaft when it comes to comforting passengers on board. And an emotional support hamster was tragically flushed away when it was refused entry on a flight earlier this yr.

That harrowing tale of a companion beast gone very, very wrong highlights the defoliation and complications of flying with animals for medical reasons. Earlier you tote your furry friend to the airport, make certain to brush up on which animals airlines allow on planes.

To help you out, we've rounded up every major airline's emotional support animal policy.

Offset, though: It'due south important to distinguish an emotional support animal from a service animal. Unlike a guide dog for a blind person, an emotional support animal is there for people with emotional, psychiatric, or psychological needs. You tin can't just show up at the aerodrome with a cat or domestic dog and proclaim it to be your emotional back up animal — official documentation from doctors, psychologists, and/or other mental health officials is required.

Equally more people endeavor to fly with their back up animals, airlines are getting more specific and detailed on what's immune, and bang-up down on which animals can fly uncrated and in the chief cabin. Airlines have created adequately robust info pages every bit passengers effort to fly with a wide range of animals, and Delta and United take both updated their requirements for flying with an emotional support creature. Both airlines have implemented the new procedures with more than paperwork and oversight.

An increase in animals — and incidents

According to a company release in Jan. 2018, Delta "carries approximately 700 service or support animals daily — nearly 250,000 annually. " Since 2016, they said, the airline has had an 84 per centum increment in incidents with animals on planes, such as peeing, pooping, and fifty-fifty biting.

United has a growing number of comfort animals onboard: 43,000 in 2016 and 76,000 in 2017, according to a spokesperson who spoke to U.s. Today.

A dog scraped a girl's face when she tried to pet the emotional support animate being on a Southwest flying from Phoenix to Portland, Oregon, according to the Washington Post.

Some airlines clearly listing which animals tin join you on your flight, while others list what animals aren't allowed (like comfort turkeys). This huge dog, below, made the cutting.

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Here's your emotional back up fauna guide for flying on major air carriers in and out of the U.S.

American Airlines

A physician'southward letter of the alphabet is required in advance to bring your back up animal with you lot. Also, a large domestic dog like the i above literally won't fly. American requires animals to "fit on your lap, at your feet, or under the seat, and cannot block the aisle." For travelers headed to Auckland, New Zealand; Hong Kong; or St. Vincent and the Grenadines emotional back up animals aren't allowed.

United

United has more robust rules in guild to fly with an emotional back up animal. More documentation is necessary — that's a letter from a doctor and a vet tape, forth with confirmation the animal will acquit in public.

Animals are limited by size also equally they must fit at passenger's anxiety and not "protrude" into the aisles or other areas.

Delta

After pet owners download and fill out the proper forms, certain animals tin can back-trail travelers. Simply animals who do non "exceed the footprint of the passenger's seat" can fly on board.

Delta says it can pass up to wing an fauna that growls, jumps on passengers, relieves themselves on board or in waiting areas, barks excessively, or eats "off seat back tray tables."

Its full list includes:

• Small mammals or pocket pets (hedgehogs, sugar gliders, rabbits, chinchillas, prairie dogs, ferrets)

• Insects and spiders

• Rodents (mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils, republic of guinea pigs)

• Reptiles (snakes, lizards, turtles)

• Amphibians (frogs, salamanders)

• Birds

• Animals improperly cleaned and/or with a foul odor

• Animals with tusks, horns or hooves (goats, pigs)

Southwest

Southwest also allows support animals to ride with passengers if those animals don't block evacuation routes. Only if you have an "unusual or exotic" beast it won't be allowed on. That includes rodents, ferrets, insects, spiders, reptiles, hedgehogs, rabbits, and saccharide gliders.

Your therapy animal tin can fly for a fee under Southwest's pet policy, which allows upward to six animals on one flight. But only one support animal per passenger is immune.

JetBlue

While on JetBlue flights, emotional support animals need to be on the floor or on a rider'south lap. As seen in a recent incident, the animals aren't allowed to be on the seats — at all.

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JetBlue'south list of unacceptable animals includes all animals with tusks (so no infant elephants). Here's the full listing:

• Hedgehogs

• Ferrets

• Insects

• Rodents

• Snakes

• Spiders

• Sugar gliders

• Reptiles

• Non-household birds (farm poultry, waterfowl, game bird, & birds of casualty)

• Animals improperly cleaned and/or with a foul odor

• Animals with tusk

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Alaska Air

Alaska Air used to have a listing of animals information technology wouldn't accept as emotional back up animals. Simply on Dec. 29, 2020 the air carrier announced an emotional support brute ban. Starting Jan. xi, 2021 information technology will simply accept DOT-certified service animals on flights. For those with reservations made before Jan. 11 with a support animal, those trips will be allowed until Feb. 28, 2021.

Spirit

This is the airline that denied the ill-fated hamster, which makes sense since rodents are on their no-fly list: "Spirit does not accept snakes, other reptiles, rodents, ferrets, and spiders." Other animals need to accept forms and permission from health officials to fly on the ground near a rider'due south seat or on a passenger's lap.

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Icelandair

Emotional support dogs — that'due south the only animal —are immune on the Icelandic airline, but the animal won't be immune in Iceland since a four-week quarantine period is required. You tin travel through Keflavík International Airdrome in Reykjavík for up to iii hours, but and so on you must get with your emotional support domestic dog.

WestJet

Traveling with your emotional dogs, cats, miniature horses, pigs, and monkeys is allowed on WestJet, simply other "unusual animals" need to get approval on a case-past-instance footing. Snakes, reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders are always a no-no.

Here's the full list of prohibited animals:

• Amphibians

• Animals improperly cleaned and/or with a foul odor

• Animals with tusks, horns, or hooves

• Ferrets

• Goats

• Hedgehogs

• Insects

• Not-household birds (birds of casualty, farm poultry, game birds, waterfowl)

• Reptiles

• Rodents

• Snakes

• Spiders

• Carbohydrate gliders

Allegiant Air

Yous're good to fly on this budget airline as long every bit the proper paperwork is filled out for your animal, and the passenger has a mental or emotional wellness-related disability from the Diagnostic and Statistical Transmission of Mental Disorders-4th Edition (or DSM IV).

Air Canada

The Canadian airline will allow emotional support dogs, just no other animals are allowed to serve every bit a comfort animal. The same procedures are required as most other airlines, such as forms verifying emotional or mental need for the support dog.

KLM

Like other European-based airlines, KLM is OK with your emotional back up dog as long as the documentation is prepared and available. You lot tin can just fly with the support dog on direct flights in and out of the U.Due south.

British Airways

For flights bound outside the U.S., your support fauna won't be allowed on flights. Like many European and non-U.S. air carriers, British Airways just has information virtually traveling with an assistance dog on its site.

Emirates

Service animals are allowed, but otherwise no pets, emotional support or otherwise, are allowed in Emirates' cabins.

For all those sugar glider emotional support animals out there ... time for a road trip.

UPDATE: May 16, 2018, 5 p.m. PDT American Airlines announced this week that its list of banned emotional support animals will expand. Starting July 1, insects, hedgehogs and goats cannot fly on the airline as passenger support animals. Miniature horses will even so exist allowed.

Those creatures will be added to its list of other unwelcome animals:

• Amphibians

• Ferrets

• Goats

• Hedgehogs

• Insects

• Reptiles

• Rodents

• Snakes

• Spiders

• Saccharide gliders

• Non-household birds (farm poultry, waterfowl, game birds, & birds of prey)

• Animals with tusks, horns or hooves (excluding miniature horses properly trained as service animals)

• Any animal that is unclean/has an smell

American said it saw a more than than 40 percent increase in service and support animals onboard from 2016 to 2017.

Divide from the American Airlines changes, the U.S. Department of Transportation is looking into changes to rules almost transporting service animals on passenger flights.

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UPDATE: February. 28, 2020: The U.Southward. Department of Transportation proposed in January a gear up of dominion changes for emotional back up animals on passenger planes. Under the new guidelines, merely service animals like guide dogs would be allowed to fly. Other support animals would be banned from the main cabin. It'due south not official still, but if the rules change almost all support animals at present immune would only be allowed to travel in cargo areas.

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Source: https://mashable.com/article/emotional-support-animal-traveling-airplane-policy

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