A Delta Air Lines elite passenger received a rare first class upgrade – but 15 minutes later was sent back to coach in order to give their seat up front to a dog instead. The airline told the customer that the dog was a service animal, and there’s “nothing they can do.”
I got upgraded to first this morning, only to 15 mins later get downgraded (to a worst seat than I previously had). I asked the desk agent what was going on and she said “something changed”.
Okay, fine, I am disgruntled but whatever, I then board only to see this dog in my first class seat … And now I’m livid.
I immediately chat Delta support and they say “you may be relocated for service animals” and there is nothing they can do.
I genuinely don’t see Delta’s logic in bumping a passenger from first class to accommodate a dog in the bulkhead. To be sure, airlines are generally required to provide reasonable accommodations under the Air Carrier Access Act, and one way they do that can be with bulkhead seats. However a last minute seat switch certainly wouldn’t be required.
- Airlines must provide seating accommodations for passengers with disabilities if needed (e.g. for legroom, mobility, or being near a service animal). Bulkhead seats are often used for this purpose.
- However, they are not required to displace other passengers from their assigned seats unless the airline has not implemented policies to reserve specific seating for passengers with disabilities (e.g. Southwest, but they pre-board such passengers who can then choose their own seat adventure).
- Airlines must prioritize disabled passengers for bulkhead seats only if those seats are necessary as an accommodation for the passenger and only if that accommodation has been requested in advance. (They should make reasonable efforts to accommodate at the airport, but don’t have the same obligation, and again wouldn’t have to displace another passenger to do it).
It’s only if an accommodation had been requested and approved in advance but Delta failed to execute on it, or mistakenly upgraded the passenger in a seat that should have been set aside for the dog already, that the airline’s downgrade makes any sense.
And upgrading a passenger and then downgrading them should be treated much more gingerly by an airline that fancies itself premium (as much as Delta executives despise doing upgrades at all). Proactive compensation would have been appropriate here, since this only could have arisen do to an airline error.
Delta does seem to have gone to the dogs, and not just because only about 13% of passengers in first class are sitting there with upgrades these days. In late summer I wrote about a first class passenger booted to accommodate a plus-sized woman with an emotional support dog and 4 carry-ons.
And here’s a dog recently eating at a table in the new Delta One lounge at New York JFK before flying business class. It was hardly the only dog making themselves at home in a Delta lounge.
@oliverbelles My review of the new @Delta One lounge @jfk✈️ But seriously…what do you guys call this dessert?! #fypage #maltipoo #dogsoftiktok #dogvoiceover @delta @Les Belles NYC ♬ original sound – oliverbelles
Last month I was actually on a Delta flight that the pilot turned around due to an unauthorized dog on board, they offloaded the passenger – and then let her and the dog back on. This led to a couple hours’ delay due to a shift change for refueling. The woman spent the flight petting the dog in her lap (hint: it wasn’t really a service animal).
@Gary, does a Service animal get its own seat free? I thought they had to sit at the feet of the passenger. Also, so the GA agent can take away his newly assigned seat (the upgrade), but can’t take away the seat from the person who got his old “good” coach seat, to make the person whole again (back to his original seat) – or at least unharmed? That is the crime here – HE LOST HIS ORIGINAL SEAT and ended up in an inferior seat.
I have a service animal who has flown with me over a dozen times. She always sits in my lap, because she is 7 pounds. And I often pet her. I say this because the size of a dog, where it sits when the owner is also sitting and whether the owner shows it affection has absolutely no relation to whether it has been trained to assist with a disability. A medical alert dog does not come in any particular size.
Morons frequently flying thi k they’re entitled to a lot. You didn’t pay for the seat, you’re not entitled to it. Get over yourself. Especially regarding someone with a disability that is paying.
In 2019, Delta was sued by a passenger who was attacked and injured by another passenger’s emotional support dog; the dog was a personal pet, not a trained service animal. There are plenty of news articles about it.
By law, emotional support animals are not service animals. A service is trained to perform a specific task for a person such as alert for low blood sugar before a seizure or guide a person with blindness . It takes a special animal, thousands of dollars, and years of training to become a service animal. A vest or harness purchased online does not qualify an animal as a service animal. Untrained animals are pets. All passengers, flight crews, and airline employees should have the reasonable expectation that all passengers will follow the rules.
There are many other less stressful forms of travel for people who need to travel with a family pet. It’s unreasonable and selfish for a pet owner to subject their pet to the rigor of any long distance travel without special carriers and accommodation.
Unless your animal has specialized training, all travel will be stressful. Show your pet your love by leaving it at home with a sitter.
Having worked for a major U.S. airline, I have seen, and have had shared to me by others, horror stories (some, too explicit to print) of “service animals,” and no considerations for other paying passengers (but they “won’t serve peanuts…”) I would venture to say that more than 80% of these belong to people who just don’t want to pay for pet care/hotel or put them in a carrier below. My neighbors even ask me how to “get around” it. I tell them sarcastically to just print a phoney certificate and by a “service animal” vest on Esty. As for the few legitimate service animals, maximum consideration of the inconveniences to the other passengers must be taken by the owner. Being cute is not a mitigation.
Elite flyer here, and I also am sick of the people who are ok with dogs and other animals taking priority in the cabin.
First, there needs to be licensing and an obvious, non-fake way of ensuring that animal is really a service animal. I see way too many that are not, and you van tell because a service animal is well trained and behaved. Most, I believe, are not.
Second, since when is a dog, or any other animal on par with humans? Owners and their supporters have become ridiculous with the cruelty laws and much more. For example, leash laws always include cats, but tell that to cat owners and they will howl about how cruel it is to keep their murder fluff inside, meanwhile the actual wildlife is being decimated by cats.
I do not think that your pet should have the right to inconvenience other people.
There is a theme here. Gary whines when he can’t get upgraded to the suite he did not pay for and sides with hubric “elites” when they can’t “enjoy” the upgraded seats they also did not pay for. Gary bemoans the airline trying to get extra money by selling upgrades. Gary sides or seems to with those who begrudge those with disabilities who need a service animal. The blog should be renamed “three cheers for entitlements … a guide to not paying”. The person complaining has now had their 15 seconds as there are many news articles. Meanwhile Delta did the right thing and took proper care of a customer with special needs. Yes disabilities count for more than selfish entitlements to “freebies”. Gary your framing of this issue directly contributed to the nastiness displayed by roughly half your commenter’s. We all owe the man with the service dog an apology. Neither he nor hus dog did anything wrong.
@Michael Lissack – what sort of cognitive dissonance is it to say that someone being upgraded has no right to complain about a downgrade, because they were getting ‘something for nothing’ (which is false, what they got was because of a year’s worth of airline ticket purchases) and also that giving a first class seat to a dog that was not paid for is doing ‘the right thing’?
If I had actually been upgraded and had a boarding pass to prove it, I’d decline the downgrade, and insist that for the IDB I be given significant compensation and be allowed to disembark then put on the next flight in F. Take my checked luggage off, too.