Home for the Holidays

Delta Cracks Down on Emotional-Support Animals, Even the Very Good Ones

Happy holidays!
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From ©Paramount/Everett Collection.

Delta, an airline that is not the worst airline, according to an informal poll of people sitting near me right now, announced Monday that emotional-support animals—that is, sweet cats, nice doggies—will no longer be allowed on flights that are over eight hours. Service pups under four months aren’t allowed at all. The new policy starts December 18, right in time for the Christmas holiday travel week, when emotional-service needs skyrocket. (Hope you and Rover got your tickets already; those who already purchased tickets before December 18 will be grandfathered in.)

Part of the reason for the narrowing guidelines is the massive increase in emotional-support animals flying since 2015. They’re up 150 percent. The bump logically led to more “incidents” reported to the Department of Transportation the following year, especially dogs not being good boys. Defecations increased, as did biting and at least one report of a approximately 50-pound dog mauling a passenger who could not escape because he was in the window seat and the dog’s owner was in the middle seat. Delta started cracking down in the past couple years, prohibiting hedgehogs, “farm poultry,” and anything with hooves or tusks. (That’s why you don’t see many emotional-support narwhals anymore.)

“These updates support Delta’s commitment to safety, and also protect the rights of customers with documented needs—such as veterans with disabilities—to travel with trained service and support animals,” John Laughter, Delta’s senior vice president of corporate safety, security, and compliance, said.

Honestly, eight hours gets you fairly far. You can pretty much fly anywhere domestic in the U.S., except for, like, Honolulu to Boston. Many international flights, too, are on the table. Chicago to London just fits under the gun. You can get from New York to Quito, in a reasonable, pet-friendly amount of time. East Coast to Eastern Europe is out, as is pretty much anywhere out of the country from Houston or Alaska. Connecting flights seem to be a go? So at least there’s that.

Listen, no one wants to be sitting next to a spraying cat in economy when you’re headed to your first Christmas at the in-laws, you know? But furry-plane mayhem is what the holidays are all about: few moments of emotional reprieve sandwiched between discomfort, urine, and allergies (real or metaphorical). If you’re very lucky, there‘s a good little sweetie you can pet on the head for eight consecutive hours or so.

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