How to Travel On Planes with Emotional Support Animals

If your pet helps you mitigate certain emotional and psychiatric conditions, then it isn’t just a pet, but it’s also an emotional support animal. Chances are you want to keep them with you as you travel. ESAs have that power to create a surreal experience of comfort that comes in handy in a flight.

Benefits of emotional support animals

Luckily, many airlines allow people to travel with their ESAs, amid having strict rules about it. In this article, we will look at how to fly with your ESA on different airlines. The airline rules may change as the Department of Transportation made some proposals in January to exclude ESAs from the main cabin. But this is not official yet.

The following are the five airlines that allow you to travel with your ESA and the requirements for each:

1. ESA Travel on Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines is one of the airlines that welcome emotional support animals in the aircraft cabin. Nevertheless, there are several requirements to meet before traveling on this airline with your ESA.

Firstly, Delta requires that you notify them of the presence of an ESA 48 hours before your flight. You can call them at 404-209-3434 if you need some assistance. Within this time window, you should send them the following documents:

• An ESA travel letter
• Mental Health Professional Form
• Veterinary Health Form
• Confirmation of Animal Training Form

All of the above documents are downloadable online. Be sure to visit their official website to download the documents.

In Delta, only one ESA is allowed per person. The animal must sit on the lap or floor (never on passenger seats) without blocking exits and aisles. Delta also doesn’t allow animals to eat from trays tables. You can submit all documents duly filled online. Delta also accepts soft copy ESA travel letters.

2. ESA Travel on American Airlines

Just like Delta, you must notify this airline of ESA presence 48 hours before a flight.

Documents Required

The requirements are pretty similar to Deltas too. Some of the documents that you will need to provide include:

• ESA travel letter
• Mental Health Professional Form
• Veterinary Health Form (they also take vaccination records)
• Confirmation of Animal Behavior Form
• Animal Sanitation Form for flights over 8 hours.

American Airlines is stricter with ESA travel. They only allow three animals:

• Dogs
• Cats
• Miniature Horses

The ESA must sit on a lap or floor, and not block passageways. If kenneled, the animal must be under the passenger seat in front of the ESA owner. All forms are submittable via email or fax (fax no: 817-967-4715).

3. ESA Travel on Alaska Air

As with the other airlines, Alaska Air has four required documents:

• ESA Travel Letter
• Mental Health Professional Form
• Animal Health Advisory Form
• Guest Confirmation of Liability and ESA Behavior Form

You can submit duly filled forms via email (support.animal@alaskaair.com) or fax (fax no: 206-392-2804).

While the restrictions are relatively fewer here, there are animals Alaska air never allows. Here is a list of animals that this airline doesn’t allow:

• Hedgehogs, rodents, and ferrets
• Insects
• Reptiles
• Birds of prey
• Exotic animals

If your emotional support animal falls in any of the above categories of animals, you should try another airline.

4. ESA Travel on WestJet

WestJet requires no more than the standard documentation other airlines require. All you need are the four documents required by the other airlines.

WestJet also happens to be one of the airlines with the most extensive list of allowable ESAs. The full list features:

• Dogs
• Cats
• Miniature horses
• Monkeys
• Pigs

Flying with emotional support animals

5. ESA Travel on Southwest Airlines

Southwest has some of the stringent ESA rules. They only allow emotional support dogs and cats. Your ESA must be either kenneled or on a leash. Also, each person can only have one support animal, but each plane can have a maximum of six animals.

Documents Required

Southwest requires no documentation other than an ESA travel letter.

Other Important Considerations to Make

Before booking a ticket in any of the airlines above, you must ensure that your ESA is current on all vaccinations. Animals can be vaccinated against rabies at a minimum of three months of age and must wait an additional 30 days for the vaccine to become effective. This requirement is put in place to ensure passenger safety during flights.

A requirement that is common in almost all airlines is that an ESA travel letter must be provided.

Get Your ESA Today

Air travel with an ESA can turn into a nightmare should you have a fake or more than a year old ESA travel letter. As such, you should ensure that you have a valid ESA letter before traveling.

Adding calm to your air travel is as easy as getting a legit ESA letter.

Do you have a condition that deserves traveling with an emotional support animal? Please make an appointment with us; we want to help.

Get your ESA letter Now!

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