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No-win situation for Alaska Air. Woman with her 90 pound service dog insists she has the right to the entire bulkhead without paying for the 2 additional seats. She is in the wrong (ADA requires only reasonable accommodation, not loss of revenue), and we have all deplaned as they pry her off the plane. I'm sympathetic to her plight, but it leaves me wondering what the heck she was thinking.

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Service animal intended to respond if her blood pressure gets out of control. We were seated right behind her. I need a dog like that just about now….

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Just reboarded. She's still on board with her dog, seats are vacant, and that's all we know.

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It's a big dog but that doesn't give her the right to steal two seats from passengers who'd already paid for them. She'd boarded with the dog, settled it into the floor space for the two seats next to her, put all three of her carry-on bags(!) into the overhead bin and took control of the row. Looks like she did finally agree to pay for the extra seats herself, but I suspect she'll take this up with Alaska again after the flight, as she claims she checked with Alaska the night before and was assured she could have the space, and that "other airlines have always given me this space.

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Swine flew: First-class pig's owner said pet had a right to fly

November 14, 2000

Web posted at: 10:47 PM EST (0347 GMT) PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- You could call it "Flying Miss Piggy."The owner of a 300-pound pig that flew first-class across the United States won't take any baloney about whether her pet porker, "Charlotte," belonged aboard a USAirways jetliner.

"I am a big animal rights person. My pig has the right to be with me on an airplane," Maria Tirotta Andrews said in her first public comments since she, her daughter and "Charlotte" gained international notoriety by boarding a six-hour nonstop flight from Philadelphia to Seattle, Washington, on October 17.

Andrews, who suffers from a heart condition, claims the pig's presence helps relieve stress, adding that she took the animal aboard the Boeing 757 on her doctor's recommendation."I love this pig. She's my best friend," she told the Philadelphia Daily News, which mounted a two-week campaign to find Andrews and published its interview with her on Tuesday under the banner headline, "The Pig and I."

USAirways allowed "Charlotte" on board the plane, along with 200 human passengers, after granting it the same "service animal" classification reserved for seeing-eye dogs.According to the airline, "Charlotte" slept for most of the flight. But as the plane landed, the animal went hog-wild and started squealing, tried to get into the cockpit and charged through the cabin discharging feces as it went. The animal then squealed and fussed through the airport."She is one of the best-trained, best-behaved animals there is," Andrews said in her pet's defense.

USAirways has promised that no such thing will ever happen again aboard its flights.The Federal Aviation Administration is still investigating to find out how the pig got to fly in the first place.

But whether "Charlotte" is better at relieving stress or causing it remains unclear.The Daily News reported that Andrews moved from New Jersey to Everett, Washington, near Seattle, for health reasons but that her apartment managers are threatening eviction after catching sight of "Charlotte."

"They don't know if it's the high-flying pig or not. They just made the threat," Andrews told the newspaper. "They said they were animal lovers, and they're not!"

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When pigs fly? Not on this plane

A US Airways crew ordered a disruptive pig off a plane this week, adding a tasty new chapter to the annals of holiday travel and likely a million riffs on the phrase "when pigs fly."

A passenger on a US Airways flight leaving Connecticut's Bradley International Airport brought a pig on board Wednesday as an emotional-support animal.

The passenger and her pig left the flight after crewmembers decided the animal had to leave because of its disorderly behavior, Laura Masvidal, a spokeswoman for US Airways-parent American Airlines, said Friday.

A fellow passenger, University of Massachusetts professor Jonathan Skolnik, told the Associated Press he first thought the passenger was carrying a duffel bag, but an odor clarified the situation.

"It's no duffel bag but a rather stout PIG … on a leash," he wrote in an e-mail. "Am I dreaming?"

The woman, who sat next to Skolnik, tied the leash to the armrest, he said. He estimated that the pig weighed between 50 and 70 pounds, according to ABC News.

Skolnik said things got worse, which actually means better for late-night talk hosts drooling over the comedic mix of barnyard animals and air travel.

"The pig is incontinent," he told AP. The animal then started running back and forth, as its owner tried to control its behavior and clean up after the animal before eventually leaving the plane.

The U.S. Department of Transportation allows emotional-support animals on commercial flights, but only if they are not disruptive, Masvidal said.

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Customers have attempted to fly with comfort turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more. Ignoring the true intent of existing rules governing the transport of service and support animals can be a disservice to customers who have real and documented needs. Delta has seen an 84 percent increase in reported animal incidents since 2016, including urination/defecation, biting and even a widely reported attack by a 70-pound dog. In 2017, Delta employees reported increased acts of aggression (barking, growling, lunging and biting) from service and support animals, behavior not typically seen in these animals when properly trained and working.

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