U.S. will limit service animals on planes to dogs only

The federal government gave its final approval Wednesday to a set of rules that clamp down on the types of service animals allowed on U.S. flights, reserving the designation for dogs and freeing airlines from having to accommodate a variety of emotional-support animals.

The changes, which drew more than 15,000 public comments since the Department of Transportation proposed them at the beginning of the year, will take effect next month.

They have kindled an intense debate among the airlines, advocates for people who rely on service animals and passengerrights groups, and came as a growing number of travelers have taken a variety of animals on flights in recent years.

Most recently, transportation regulators had said that dogs, cats and miniature horses should be prioritized as service animals by airlines. But passengers have tried to travel with monkeys, birds and rabbits.

Federal transportation officials said Wednesday that disruptions caused by taking unusual species aboard airlines had “eroded the public trust in legitimate service animals” and that there were increasing cases of travelers “fraudulently representing their pets as service animals.”

The new rules require airlines to treat psychiatricservice animals the same as other service animals. The owners of those service animals must provide documentation developed by the Transportation Department attesting to the animal’s health, behavior and training.

Passengers traveling with service animals will no longer be required to physically check in at the airport instead of online.

The new rules stopped short of banning emotional-support animals outright, but proponents said that airlines would no longer have to accommodate nonservice animals in the cabin.

The lobbying group Airlines for America, which includes all of the major U.S. carriers, welcomed the changes.

“The Department of Transportation’s final rule will protect the traveling public and airline crew members from untrained animals in the cabin, as well as improve air travel accessibility for passengers with disabilities that travel with trained service dogs,” the group’s president, Nicholas Calio, said in a statement Wednesday.

Some advocates for people with disabilities said the new rules were too rigid and did not take into account travelers with special needs.

“There’s a large number of people with intellectual and emotional disabilities that benefit from having that kind of support on a trip,” Curt Decker, the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, said in an interview Wednesday night.

Decker said travelers with disabilities were being penalized because of other people abusing the system and that airlines had brought the problem on themselves by charging costly fees for transporting pets in cargo holds.

“There’s no one in the disability community that thinks a turkey is a service animal,” Decker said.