The many issues those with a service animal are facing at the airport

For those in need of a service animal, life is already extremely difficult for a variety of reasons, but traveling with a service animal is proving to be even more arduous these days.

According to a piece at The New York Times, travelers who are in need of a service animal are finding convincing airport and airline staff that their particular animal is truthfully a service animal is harder than you’d think.

What are some of the difficulties those with a service animal are facing when traveling?

According to the aforementioned piece, Joanna Lubkin is someone who suffers from chronic back pain, and having a service animal helps her out in a big way. As it turns out though, she was recently denied the ability to fly and all because a JetBlue Airlines gate agent informed her that there were no forms in order to certify that her dog was in fact a certified service animal.

However in truth, she had already filled out two forms…one with Delta and the other with JetBlue. She told the press that Delta had given her no problems, but the story was altogether different with JetBlue.

"“Flying is physically painful for me and for a lot of people…Making it that much harder for us to travel is just unjust, and it doesn’t feel right to me…The fact that a corporation is making it so difficult for somebody to get accommodations for their disability — I consider that discrimination.”"

JetBlue did release a statement after the fact:

"“We understand that we need to ensure better consistency in verifying paperwork during travel on all flights of a customer’s itinerary…”"

But the term, ‘too little, too late’ certainly comes to mind. The deed was already done, they made the life of someone who lives with pain and difficulty that much worse…. And it doesn’t stop there.

Also according to the piece, Owen, a 4-year-old boy with respiratory issues needs a German shepherd companion that will alert those around him when he’s having an episode, and despite having properly filling out a DOT form, the same forms filled out by the aforementioned Ms. Lubkin, the airline told her that not enough info was given as to just what the dog is trained to do…

Allegiant was the airline in question in this case…

What is a DOT Form? According to American Airlines:

"“To travel with a service animal on flights operated by American, you must submit the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Service Animal Air Transportation Form attesting to the animal’s health, training, and behavior to the Special Assistance Desk at least 48 hours before your flight. We’ll notify you upon document approval. You can complete the form at the airport if you bought your ticket within 48 hours before the flight.”"

In the end, there are indeed a lot of issues still to be ironed out here and despite the work done by organizations like Open Doors, that tries to help facilitate communication between the disabled and the airlines…essentially a nonprofit disability advocacy organization, but communication seems to be lost somewhere if these and many other issues keep coming up.

And according to the stated above source, Open Doors has gone on record to mention that there have indeed been many issues in that aforementioned communication between the disabled and the airlines.

There are clearly issues that need to be ironed out here. How about you, dear readers? Have you experienced anything horrible like this at the hands of an airline, and for this specific reason?