Keeping furry frequent fliers in check

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/03/2021 (1441 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s probably a good thing air travel is so difficult these days, because I’d be a mess if I tried to board an airplane without the comfort provided by my emotional support weasel.

Ditto my emotional support alligator. And my emotional support Tasmanian Devil. Not to forget my emotional support Komodo dragon.

Unless you have been hiding in a drainpipe for the past few months, you will know there are new rules that make it pretty much impossible to get on an aircraft while accompanied by emotionally supportive critters that would have been allowed to book tickets on Noah’s Ark.

In December, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a ruling stating there is only one species of recognized service animal in American air travel: the dog. A dog, to qualify for free boarding with a human companion, must be “trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.”

On this side of the border, Air Canada now presents customers with this advisory on its web page: “Please note we have adopted a new policy on the transport of service dogs, following substantial changes to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) rules on the topic. Effective March 1, 2021, emotional support animals are no longer accepted in the cabin.”

You can still travel with your service dog if it is specially trained and properly registered, but your zebras, stoats, storks, ocelots and tropical fish will have to stay at home watching TV unless you pay for them to travel as cargo or whatever.

In my case, I have no desire to fly on an airplane accompanied by my two fluffy white dogs on the grounds they offer me absolutely zero emotional support.

The second the plane’s wheels left the ground, my dogs would abandon me and focus on the following two non-supportive activities: 1) Trying to sneak into the first-class section because the seats are bigger and the food is better; and 2) strolling down the aisle, staring with laser-like intensity at each and every passenger and threatening to hoist their legs on their seats unless they forked over their complimentary peanuts and pretzels.

Q: So why did the U.S. and Canada decide to get tough? Surely air travellers were not abusing the system and trying to board aircraft without paying for their highly questionable emotional support critters, were they?

A: Ha ha ha! You are so (bad word) naive.

In recent years, as a highly judgmental newspaper columnist, I have been forced to write informative and entertaining columns wherein I cruelly mock people who board (or try to board) jets along with a menagerie of barnyard animals.

In 2014, for instance, I wrote a groundbreaking column about a woman who boarded a US Airways jetliner at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut with her emotional support animal, a 70-pound pot-bellied pig on a leash.

Yes, I know, we have all sat beside a pig in an airline cabin at some point in our lives, but this pig — hold on while I activate the caps lock feature on my keyboard — WAS AN ACTUAL PIG!

What happened was the woman tied the pig to the armrest of her seat, then began casually stowing the other items she was carrying, which is when the pig pooped, prompting the other passengers to begin gagging and complaining, leading the plane’s crew to punt the pig and its owner from the jet.

In 2018, I shared the tragic story of an unfortunate woman who tried to board a United Airlines flight in Newark, N.J., but was turned away after showing up at the airport with her emotional support animal, which happened to be a large blue-and-green peacock.

The good news is that the banned peacock’s “human friends” drove it cross-country to reunite with its hyper-sensitive owner.

The bad news — depending on your point of view — is that it was pretty much the last straw and prompted the U.S. to tighten rules that previously allowed everything from pigs to monkeys to miniature horses on flights provided they did not become too disruptive.

Flight attendant: “Excuse me, sir, but we are going to have to ask you to leave the aircraft.”

Air traveller: “May I ask why?”

Flight attendant: “Because your emotional support python just swallowed the co-pilot.”

Fortunately, some emotionally supportive items are still allowed on major airlines. For the record, I am referring here to beer.

I say this because I am holding in my hands a news report about a guy from Brooklyn named Floyd Hayes, who made headlines last year when, just for fun, he registered his “emotional support beer” on the USA Service Dog Registration website. He got a registration number, but it was soon deleted. “He can register his beer all day long, it’s not going to get him anywhere,” an employee stated at the time.

But Hayes is laughing the last laugh, because this month the lager makers at Woodstock Brewery agreed to turn his liquid therapy animal into an actual beer — canning a 6.7 ABV Citra Hops IPA with hints of tropical fruit, mango, passion fruit, and papaya.

A portion of the proceeds from the “Emotional Support Beers” will go to an organization that pairs shelter dogs with deserving veterans and first responders.

As a crusading journalist, I have developed an opinion on whether emotional support animals and/or beers should be allowed on commercial aircraft — it should always be decided on a case-by-case basis. Cheers!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca