Last Saturday (April 6), Redditor u/Rota8or snapped a photo of an unexpected passenger aboard his flight from New York to Madrid: a Great Dane sitting on top of his owner, secured in a purple harness.

“Isn’t there a size or weight limit? The dog snapped at someone and four flight attendants plus the pilot came to check out the dog. They made them hold the dog on a leash, but really?” the Delta passenger wrote.

u/Rota8or isn’t the only passenger to have expressed their irritation towards large dogs disrupting other flyers in the cabin. In the past few days, many have taken to Reddit to denounce how people’s furry companions have ruined their travel experiences.

A group of plane passengers have taken to Reddit to voice their complaints about untrained dogs traveling in the cabin

Image credits: Svitlana/stock.adobe.com

“My wife is blind. She has a very highly-trained guide dog that is life-changing for her. These fake service dogs make every trip stressful as they are clearly not trained and result in people assuming every service dog is fake,” someone else wrote on the social network.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, service dogs are specially trained to perform specific tasks for people with disabilities. These disabilities can be physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or mental.

Most airlines don’t charge passengers for traveling with service animals. This is because service animals aren’t considered pets, given their vital role to their owners.

Another difference from pets is that service dogs are allowed in the cabin regardless of their size. In contrast, regular cats or dogs are required to travel inside a carrier that must fit underneath the seat directly in front of the passenger.

Many suspect the owners have falsely claimed their furry friends as service animals

Image credits: Certain_Monitor8688

Still, there are some rules for flying with service dogs. On Delta flights, “trained service animals are expected to be seated in the floor space below a customer’s seat or seated in a customer’s lap. They are not permitted to occupy seats,” the airline’s website states.

Consequently, “the size of the animal must not exceed the ‘footprint’ of the passenger’s seat.”

A further requirement for service dogs is that they “must be properly cleaned and must not have a foul odor.”

But how do airlines verify that a person’s Weimaraner or Labrador is a service animal and not merely a beloved pet they can’t spend five days without? This is where the gray areas appear.

Airlines don’t consider service animals as pets, so they don’t charge passengers for traveling with them

There’s no way that’s a real service dog.
byu/Certain_Monitor8688 inunitedairlines

Companies like American Airlines, Delta, and United Airlines require customers to complete the U.S. DOT Service Animal Air Travel Form for validation prior to their flight to attest to the animal’s health, training, and behavior.

In the form, flyers must check certain boxes, such as “Service Animal has been trained to behave in a public setting” and “I understand that a properly trained dog does not act aggressively by biting, barking, jumping, lunging, or injuring people or other animals. It does not urinate or defecate on the aircraft or in the gate area.”

American Airlines’ website states that the airline’s “team members are trained to ask certain questions to determine if your animal is a service animal acceptable for travel” in addition to asking flyers to fill out the U.S. Department of Transportation form, which must be approved.

However, as many Redditors have shared, it seems that people have found a way to bypass these controls.

Multiple companies require passengers to fill out a form attesting to the dog’s health, training, and behavior

Image credits: rota8or

“Last summer, I had a large breed in the bulkhead row ahead of me. The couple was heading to Tulum for the summer. They were openly bragging about how they got the service animal status and drugged the dog for the flight,” one person wrote.

A separate post, titled “There’s no way that’s a real service dog,” shows a golden retriever sitting on the aisle of a United Airlines flight. The camera then shifts to the Redditor’s own service dog, which remains within the confines of their seat.

There have also been reports of not-so-hygienic situations in the cabin after a passenger’s dog couldn’t hold it until the end of the flight.

A United Airlines passenger shared how a dog’s “messy incident” in the first class section of a five-hour flight from Houston to Seattle resulted in the flight being diverted to Dallas Fort Worth Airport.

“Ground crew spent over 2 hours cleaning carpets with paper towels. Smell made me ill. Gate agents kept yelling at passengers and the cabin crew. The smell never quite went away,” the Reddit user wrote. 

“First class toilet was declared unusable as the dog mess was apparently unresolved in there. Food went bad while on the ground so very few snacks left.”

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Still, there have been reports of a messy situation in the cabin of a United Airlines plane

Image credits: gig_wizard

Then, there’s the issue of allergies. Redditor u/Tschank4, who has a severe dog allergy he describes as “borderline anaphylactic,” shared his negative experience onboard a flight from New Jersey to Miami.

“Boarding EWR-MIA now and there’s one [dog] running into the aisle every 10 seconds and can’t sit still,” they penned. 

“I understand and appreciate the need for real working dogs but it’s insane that people are able to buy a sh**ty vest on Amazon and have their disruptive dog occupying a very large amount of space on the plane, including other passengers’ legroom.”

A Delta representative informed Bored Panda via email that there’s no specific guideline on how the airline staff should respond during these kinds of situations.

“Our agents and crews can use situational flexibility to move a nearby customer if requested,” they said. Additionally, they informed that instances where dogs may get aggressive with flyers “are dealt with on a specific case by specific case basis.”

Another passenger with a severe allergy to dogs shared that the “disruptive” animals on his flight were “occupying a very large amount of space”

Image credits: Jeswin Thomas/Unsplash

In conversation with Bored Panda, a spokesperson for American Airlines shed light on the precautions they take to avoid uncomfortable situations for passengers.

As they explained, the airline’s specialized staff always analyze the dog’s behavior prior to boarding.

“Service dogs obviously have to be trained. If airline staff assess that a dog lacks training based on observation and its behavior doesn’t align with documented indications, they reserve the right to refuse the passenger’s request to travel with their animal.”

Furthermore, the spokesperson addressed how the staff would respond to enhance the travel experience for individuals with a dog allergy.

“You cannot control whether a passenger has an allergy. The only thing the staff can do is change the seat of the person who has an allergy so that people travel safely.”

Opinions were divided regarding whether dogs should be allowed in the cabin

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