This is a somewhat more considered crosspost from Bluesky, with a day to reflect on it.
It’s telling, I think, that a Washington Post article about people having difficulty flying with service animals following new regulations implemented in 2021 opens thusly:
The regulations were an effort to crack down on a rise in passengers passing off untrained pets as service or emotional support animals. Some travelers tried to take peacocks, pigs, ducks and even miniature horses onboard aircraft. Some animals defecated on the planes or attacked crew members, passengers and legitimate service dogs.
Apparently this was something that needed “cracking down” on, which naturally leads one to ask: how many is “some”? The Washington Post does not say. Obviously, the problem was large enough to warrant new directives to the airlines about what qualifies as a service animal, though. So how many was it? Ten thousand? A thousand? Five hundred?
In 2019, Fortune says, 1.1M passengers flew with some kind of support animal. This would represent .1% of the 1.1 billion domestic passengers that year. That year, the FAA received 1,161 reports of “unruly passengers,”—perhaps some of the incidents are reflected there? If so, it’s not broken out any further. Delta changed their policy in 2018, citing an “84%” increase in “incidents”, again not providing any actual numbers.
(For example, reported incidents going from 19 to 35 might be an 84% increase, or it might be statistical noise)
One would imagine that if a “legitimate service dog” was attacked, this might be reflected in the data which airlines are required to report about animal injuries or deaths on their planes. In 2019, the DOT recorded 2 complaints, a cockapoo that died of cancer in January and a schnauzer that was discovered dead on arrival in April—both of these clearly cases of pets dying while traveling. There were 2 incidents in 2018. In 2017, there was one. So either “attacks” on “legitimate” service dogs don’t warrant reporting, or… ...or, well, I don’t know. The numbers must be elsewhere.
(over that span of time 2504 “civil rights complaints by air travelers with disabilities” were received, as it happens)
The final ruling by the Department of Transportation, which is reflected in the Washington Post article, also doesn’t cite any figures. Well. More specifically, it doesn’t cite any figures about how many incidents have occurred. It sure as heck does cite figures about the estimated cost savings to airlines. It estimates that the rule could cost passengers with service animals $1.3M a year, while saving airlines up to $21.6M. Guess we know who wins out there.
