Southwest Airlines has just made a long-awaited change, and it looks like the end of an era

This is a story about Southwest Airlines catching up with its competitors.

Quick background: A few short years ago, the proliferation of passengers who insisted on taking emotional support animals on board was one of the biggest challenges facing Suidwes and other airlines.

The airlines had little choice. According to federal rules, people on service aircraft could be accompanied by service animals, but not the definition of ‘service animals’.

The result? Passengers brought “comfort turkeys, gliders known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more” on board as their emotional support animals, according to an industry report.

This in turn led to a “boom” in incidents of ‘barking, biting, pinching, growling and fighting’ in passenger cabins, according to the same report.

Last week, however, Southwest Airlines took the big step to basically ban most so-called emotional support animals from their huts.

“As of March 1, 2021,” Southwest said in a statement, “the airline will only accept trained service dogs for travel and will no longer transport animals with emotional support,” he said:

With this review, Southwest Airlines will only allow service dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified person with a disability, to travel with the customer.

The types of disability include a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability and only dogs are accepted (including those for psychiatric service) – no other species is accepted as a trained service animal.

Now, of course, Suidwes is not on its own with this new policy. As I wrote earlier, American, Delta and United Airlines, along with smaller airlines, changed their rules earlier this month.

At the time, Southwest told me there were no changes to announce. At least one report has suggested that some travelers hope that Suidwes, “known for its independent spirit, may not participate” over the ban. Alas, now they have caught up with the others.

This is all in response to the US government’s review of its own rules in December, which provides a definition for service animals, allowing airlines to prove that they are truly trained, and airlines offer the option to pet animals with emotional support as pets. to classify.

Of course, some people need real service animals. They are still allowed.

But this rule change should make life easier for flight attendants, who had to handle the animals – including situations where passengers and flight attendants were bitten or otherwise injured by them. (Examples: here, here and here.)

Now I know that this whole thing looks like five crises, so to speak. It’s after all in the airline industry.

Just in the past week, we’ve had so many other developments: the CDC requiring all airline passengers (and people on other forms of public transportation) to wear masks, which will hopefully remove some burdens from flight attendant’s shoulders. .

Add to that the huge losses most airlines have posted recently (Suidwes had its first annual loss in almost 50 years), the debate over the middle seats, and as Suidwes president Tom Nealon puts it, the prospect of ‘ a goat rodeo “if the government were to require airlines to test Covid passengers before domestic flights.

It makes it feel a little better to reach the end (apparently) of the story of emotional support animals.

Another point: I am not aware that there has ever been a real impact on the airlines’ airlines. Passengers who would fly might have complained, but it was not as if they could go to another airline that had stricter rules; they all had to comply with federal law.

But here the airlines were able to work together, ultimately for the benefit of employees who did not want to police the case under all their other responsibilities. It has taken years to resolve, and if you are a business leader in an industry, it is worth taking to heart.