Alert your airline in advance if you have a pet allergy

If you’re allergic to animals (and particularly if you’re allergic to dogs), the rise in service animals on planes can be a real problem. What can you do to make yourself safer and/or more comfortable?

In a story for Travel + Leisure, Claire Trageser writes that the first thing to do is alert your airline in advance. “Airlines do tell passengers with severe allergies to contact them before the flight,” she says, “and ask not to be seated near another passenger traveling with a pet.” For starters, staff may attempt to separate you and any animal flying on the same plane as you. An American Airlines spokesman quoted in the story explains that “if a customer is allergic, the airline will ‘separate the customer with the allergy as far apart as possible from the customer with the cabin pet.'” And “‘if this is not available or unacceptable to the customer with the allergy,'” he says, AA “‘will attempt to rebook the passenger with the allergy on a later American Airlines flight.'”

JetBlue employs a similar policy, according to a spokesperson, as does Southwest. (An interesting note here is that Southwest “allows a maximum of six pets to be booked on one flight,” a number that is apparently rarely reached.) Ultimately, different airlines will handle the information in different ways, but giving them more time to accommodate you is bound to be a good idea.

On the other side of things, if you need to fly with an emotional support animal, don’t forget that you’ll need to provide a legitimate prescription letter from a medical professional (see more here). And as written here, it will probably make sense to contact your airline in advance to ensure that you have everything covered before you get to the airport. As an added bonus, the airline will be able to note that information in case anyone booked on your flight has a pet allergy.

Related:

 

____________________________________________________________

Have your own tip? Email it to whitney@johnnyjet.com!
Want to see more tips? Click here for all 1,440!

Want even more travel tips? Sign up here for the Daily Travel Tip newsletter! Just fill in your email address and check the Daily Travel Tip box—and you’ll have Johnny’s best tips, straight to your inbox each day!

If you already subscribe to our weekly newsletter, you can sign up on the same page. Just fill in your email and check the Daily Travel Tip box on the same page and you’ll receive an email with a link to update your JohnnyJet.com preferences. On that page, just click the Daily Travel Tip box and Update Profile.

3 Comments On "Alert Your Airline in Advance If You Have a Pet Allergy"
  1. Gretchen Mayes|

    Not sure why I have to accommodate people with “support” animals if I have an allergy to dogs. Why don’t they rebook the people with pets? Oh sorry, “support animals”. This whole “support animal” movement has gotten so out of control it is laughable and does a great disservice to those people who have a legitimate need for a service animal. For the right amount of money It is very easy to get “the letter” and designation of “support animal” on line these days. AND the airlines are NOT allowed to question ANYTHING. People used to have friends. Now they have “support animals” and “fur babies”. The world has gone mad!

  2. Darby Ziegler|

    Totally agree with Gretchen! My first thought when reading this tip was that the person with the animal should get rebooked, not the person with a “real” allergy! This is an absurd policy by airlines.

  3. mrichard2247|

    Nice post. Mostly person don’t aware about this. After reading this some percentage at least know. So thanks for sharing such a nice information.

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *