AVIATION INDUSTRY

Only dogs and cats can board United Airlines flights as emotional support animals

Starting this week, United Airlines will only let passengers bring dogs and cats as emotional support animals and will bar all support animals from flights longer than eight hours.

The changes, which take effect Monday, are about finding the right balance between accommodating passengers’ disabilities and protecting other passengers and employees, United spokesman Charles Hobart said. The airline will let customers who booked travel prior to Thursday fly with animals that would have been approved to fly under its old policies as long as they have necessary documentation.

United said it decided to limit emotional support animals to shorter flights after seeing an increase in incidents involving support animals on longer flights. Service animals, which unlike support animals are required to have specialized training, still can travel on long-haul flights.

All dogs and cats traveling in the cabin — whether as emotional support animals, service animals or household pets — must also be at least 4 months old, since younger animals often haven’t received vaccinations, the airline said. Four months was already the standard for international flights, but United previously let dogs and cats as young as 2 months old fly within the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Delta Air Lines announced similar policy changes last month, though passengers paying to bring a pet in the aircraft cabin are allowed to bring animals as young as 10 weeks old on domestic flights.

Chicago-based United is going a step further in limiting the kinds of animals it will accept as emotional support animals to dogs and cats. Dogs, cats and miniature horses with specialized training are permitted to fly as service animals, the airline said…

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