American Airlines announced additional changes to its policies and procedures regarding service and emotional support animals. The goal of these changes is to protect customers who have a legitimate need as well as the team members who work every day to keep all customers safe.
American previously made changes to these policies in May 2018, including placing restrictions on animal types and adding pre-clearance notification requirements. The new changes will be effective for travel on or after April 1.
Five things you should know
- American supports the rights of customers, from veterans to people with disabilities, with a legitimate need for a trained service or support animal. Unfortunately, untrained animals can lead to safety issues for team members, customers and working service and support animals onboard aircraft.
- American surveyed 10,400 team members and 18,000 customers about these issues and used their feedback to enact these new policies. The results of this survey, along with additional comments from the airline, were submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
- Effective for travel on or after April 1, a traditional service animal may be a dog, a cat or, in some limited circumstances, a miniature horse. Emotional support animals are limited to either a dog or cat only; a customer may only bring one emotional support animal onboard aircraft.
- American will require a Veterinary Health Form, along with immunization details, for emotional support animals. Details regarding all of these updated changes and forms, as well as the advanced notice and pre-clearance policy, are available here.
- Animals under four months of age will no longer be permitted to travel as service or support animals. Animals under this age usually have not received the necessary vaccinations that protect team members and customers.
American Airlines Group
American Airlines and American Eagle offer an average of nearly 6,700 flights per day to nearly 350 destinations in more than 50 countries. American has hubs in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. American is a founding member of the oneworld® alliance, whose members serve more than 1,000 destinations with about 14,250 daily flights to over 150 countries.
