A good friend of mine suffers terribly from coeliac disease. It’s a debilitating condition that mandates constant dietary vigilance. But coeliac is not to be confused with “gluten intolerance”. One is a very real condition; the other is an attention-seeking fancy, cooked up in the hypochondriac cornucopia of the internet. Not surprisingly, my coeliac-suffering friend detests the “gluten intolerance” brigade; mostly because they gave real sufferers a bad name. Politely inquiring after gluten-free options are invariably met with the, “oh you’re one of them” looks.
Attention-seeking bandwagon-jumpers have similarly blighted the lives of real sufferers of everything from ADHD to PTSD. The latter, especially, have to endure being lumped in with the “gender is one of my trigger-words” snowflakes. Not to mention the grifters turning aviation into a combination of petting zoo and sheltered workshop.
Airlines have had enough of the “emotional support squirrel” bullshit.
The US Department of Transportation (DOT) says airlines may ban almost all so-called “emotional support animals” (ESAs) except dogs inside aircraft cabins, putting an end to passengers bringing unusual and sometimes intimidating creatures with them on flights.
The new rule, published on 2 December, cracks down on travellers hoping to bring pet peacocks, snakes, squirrels, turtles, horses, kangaroos, pigs and other animals into the aircraft cabin. Passengers sometimes attempt to take a variety of creatures aboard, claiming the non-human friends are for emotional and psychological well-being.
It’s not just airlines who are jacked off. The genuinely disabled are unsurprisingly sick of being shoved aside by Mama June and her emotional support mini-pony.
The DOT says it received more than 15,000 comments from aviation transportation stakeholders, including disability rights organisations, flight attendants, airports and other members of the public, about its proposed new rule, the explanation of which now spans 122 pages.
“This final rule defines a service animal as a dog, regardless of breed or type, that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability,” the DOT writes. “Carriers are permitted to limit service animals to dogs”[…]
“Airlines and other passengers have also reported increased incidence of misbehaviour by ESAs on aircraft and in the airport. The misbehaviour has included animals’ urinating, defecating and, in some instances, harming people and other animals at the airport or on the aircraft,” it adds.
Disruptions by “unusual species of animals on-board aircraft… has eroded the public trust in legitimate service animals”.
The plain fact is that people who legitimately rely on service dogs are being sidelined by grifting jerks who just want to avoid paying to transport their stupid pets.
“Because airlines charge passengers for transporting pets, and are prohibited from charging passengers travelling with service animals, passengers previously had an incentive to claim their pets were ESAs,” the DOT says[…]
The rule also allows airlines to recognise emotional support animals as pets, rather than legitimate service animals, and can now banish them from the aircraft cabin. It also allows airlines to limit the number of service animals brought into cabins to two per passenger.
Flight Global
Nearly everybody has a story of flying in some third-world shithole and sharing a cabin with goats, chickens and pigs. They just didn’t expect the third-world shithole to be Kansas.
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