14 CFR Part 382 Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in Air Travel (Air Carrier Access Act): Preamble and Section-by-Section Analysis (with amendments issued through July 2010)

382.117 Must carriers permit passengers with a disability to travel with service animals? This section has been made more detailed than the current rule’s service animal provision, in response to the comments discussed earlier in the preamble. Further guidance to carriers and passengers concerning service animals follows the Section-by-Section Analysis.

The general rule is that service animals must be allowed to accompany their users. Carriers cannot deny transportation to a service animal because its presence may offend or annoy other passengers (e.g., by causing an allergic reaction that does not rise to the level of a disability or by offending someone’s cultural or personal preferences). When another passenger is uncomfortable with proximity to a service animal, the carrier should do its best to satisfy all passengers by offering the uncomfortable passenger the opportunity to sit elsewhere. Forcing the passenger with the service animal to move to another seat to make another passenger more comfortable, let alone denying transportation in the cabin to the service animal or its user, is not an option.

If a flight segment is scheduled to take eight hours or more, the carrier may require documentation that the service animal will not need to relieve itself or can do so in a way that will not create a health or sanitation issue on the flight.

The only acceptable reason for not allowing a service animal to accompany its user at the user’s seat is that the animal will block a space that, according to FAA or equivalent foreign safety regulations, must remain unobstructed. If, for this reason, the animal cannot be accommodated at the user’s seat, the carrier must allow the passenger and the animal to sit elsewhere on the aircraft, if an appropriate place exists.

There are new, more detailed procedures for the carriage of emotional support and psychiatric service animals. The carrier may require the passenger to provide current documentation from a licensed mental health professional (e.g., a medical doctor that is treating the passenger’s mental or emotional disability or a licensed clinical social worker) caring for the passenger that the passenger has a specific, recognized mental or emotional disability and that the passenger needs to be accompanied by the specific emotional support or psychiatric service animal in question, either on the flight or at the passenger’s destination.

Certain unusual service animals need never be accommodated (e.g., rodents, snakes). Other uncommonly used animals (e.g., miniature horses, monkeys) can travel as service animals on U.S. carriers, but the carrier can decide to exclude a particular animal on a case-by-case basis if it is too large or heavy to be accommodated on a given flight. Foreign carriers are not required to carry service animals other than dogs. We will seek further comment in the SNPRM on whether there are safety-related reasons for excluding animals that may be specific to foreign carriers.

Near the end of this preamble, the Department has included a revised guidance document containing further discussion of service animal matters. With the exception of changes discussed earlier in the preamble, this guidance document incorporates the guidance the Department issued on service animal matters in May 2003. As guidance, it does not have independent mandatory effect, but rather describes how the Department understands the requirements of section 382.117. It also makes suggestions and recommendations concerning how carriers can best accommodate service animals and their users.

The guidance document notes that carriers can properly apply the same policies to “psychiatric service animals” as they do for emotional support animals. This is because carriers and the Department have encountered instances of attempted abuse of service animal transportation policies by persons traveling with animals in both categories. Should the Department encounter a pattern of abuse concerning service animals in other categories, we can consider additional safeguards with respect to those categories as well.

We would call also readers’ attention to recent DOT guidance concerning the transportation of service animals into the United Kingdom. “Guidance Concerning the Carriage of Services Animals in Air Transportation Into the United Kingdom” (February 26, 2007) discusses the transportation of service dogs and cats into the U.K. via U.S. and foreign carriers. To transport service animals into the U.K., carriers must participate in the U.K. Pet Travel Scheme. A supplementary DOT guidance document, “Carriage of Service Animals in Air Transportation Into the United Kingdom and Foreign Health Documentation Requirements for Service Animals in Air Transportation” (July 17, 2007), provides further information for carriers and the public concerning carriage of, and documentation needed for, carriage of service animals into countries other than the U.K. These documents may be found on the Department’s Aviation Consumer Protection Division website.