With increasing numbers of service or emotional-support animals on flights — dogs, cats and even ducks — have come increasing numbers of problems and complaints. The rise in emotional support animals has coincided with growing publicity on the mental health benefit of pets. In the era of a global pandemic, need of emotional support animals has been considered by some, to be even more important.

Since 2016, one company reported an 86-percent increase in 'animal incidents', that include animals urinating, biting or showing acts of aggression. In 2017, a 70-pound dog flying as a support animal bit another passenger several times in the face on a Delta plane in Atlanta. The victim was hospitalized.

Other airlines have not released their own figures, and the Department of Transportation says it does not collect data on service and support animals on U.S. flights. However, the agency’s reports on disability-related complaints show that those involving service animals nearly quadrupled between 2012 and 2016, when more than 2,300 were filed. Scrutiny of service animals is also sharpening nationwide and nineteen States now have laws that criminalize fraudulently passing off pets as service animals.

Federal regulators have interpreted a 1986 access-to-travel law to allow support animals in airplane cabins and in apartment buildings that do not allow pets. But some passengers use untrained pets in order to get them on a plane for free, especially since it's easy to go online to buy vests or ID cards with a "service animal" insignia. Slowly modifications to airlines' rules have occurred to reflect the U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) rulings.

The USDOT today announced in December that it is revising its Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) regulation on the transportation of service animals by air to ensure a safe and accessible air transportation system. Alaska Airline was the first airline to announce their updated policy and the others are sure to follow. The final rule on Traveling by Air with Service Animals can be found HERE.

The Department received more than 15,000 comments on the notice of proposed rulemaking. The final rule announced today addresses concerns raised by individuals with disabilities, airlines, flight attendants, airports, other aviation transportation stakeholders, and other members of the public, regarding service animals on aircraft.

The final rule:

Defines a service animal as a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability;
No longer considers an emotional support animal to be a service animal;
Requires airlines to treat psychiatric service animals the same as other service animals;
Allows airlines to require forms developed by DOT attesting to a service animal’s health, behavior and training, and if taking a long flight attesting that the service animal can either not relieve itself, or can relieve itself in a sanitary manner;
Allows airlines to require individuals traveling with a service animal to provide the DOT service animal form(s) up to 48 hours in advance of the date of travel if the passenger’s reservation was made prior to that time;
Prohibits airlines from requiring passengers with a disability who are traveling with a service animal to physically check-in at the airport instead of using the online check-in process;
Allows airlines to require a person with a disability seeking to travel with a service animal to provide the DOT service animal form(s) at the passenger’s departure gate on the date of travel;
Allows airlines to limit the number of service animals traveling with a single passenger with a disability to two service animals;
Allows airlines to require a service animal to fit within its handler’s foot space on the aircraft;
Allows airlines to require that service animals be harnessed, leashed, or tethered at all times in the airport and on the aircraft;
Continues to allow airlines to refuse transportation to service animals that exhibit aggressive behavior and that pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others; and
Continues to prohibit airlines from refusing to transport a service animal solely based on breed.

Bottom line:

The well-trained guide dog assisting a blind traveler is allowed to fly on airplanes, but the emotional support duck was grounded by federal officials.