Assistance Dogs International North America Regional Council is dedicated to supporting the work of assistance dog programs across the United States and Canada. It was created in 2007.
Airline Rules on Traveling Assistance Dogs
By Sheri Soltes
Service Dogs, Inc.
After two years of work by our committee and many advocates, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) updated the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA).
The ACAA governs air travel in the United States including traveling with animals in the cabin.
While our industry and clients applaud Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) no longer being allowed to travel in cabin as Service Animals (the DOT’s term for Assistance Dogs), there are still details to work out.
Each Airlines Varies
Airlines are allowed to create their own policies and requirements within new guidelines of the ACAA.
This means each airline may differ in what it requires to fly with your Assistance Dog.
Forms
The DOT created two forms for passengers traveling with their Assistance Dogs.
- One is where the passenger attests (says) that their dog is trained, healthy and not aggressive.
- The second one is for flights longer than eight hours. The passenger attests that the dog can hold its need to toilet for the duration of the flight, or is trained to toilet in a way that won’t disrupt the flight, e.g. on paper in the plane lavatory.
Are the forms mandatory?
No.
Each airline has the option of whether it requires passengers to fill out the forms.
Does each airline use the forms the same way?
No.
Each airline can decide how often the passenger has to fill out the form, e.g. once a year vs. for each trip vs. when the dog’s vaccine expires.
They can also decide whether the passenger has to bring the form with them when they travel, or just fill it out at the time of reservation. Some allow passengers to carry digital versions of the form on a smart device like a cell phone.
What about form accessibility?
Passengers who are blind or have low vision may have trouble reading or completing the forms. Members of our committee and ADI NA President Sheila O’Brien have met with leadership of Airlines For America (A4A) and representatives of individual airlines to provide feedback on problems with accessibility of the forms.
What about trainers traveling with dogs?
Currently, this is up to each airline. The ACAA does not cover trainers. It only covers passengers with disabilities who use Assistance Dogs, just as the Americans With Disabilities Act pertains to individuals living with disabilities.
ADI NA leadership does plan to advocate for trainers from ADI accredited organizations traveling with dogs and dogs in training in the future. We feel we will succeed in prioritizing one topic at a time. The airlines have been challenged with reduced staff and resources due to COVID-19. The representatives, who most specialize in accessibility, have displayed a very cooperative attitude. For example, the larger airlines have taken our feedback on lack of accessibility of the forms to heart and corrected them within a short time after meeting with us.
There is also the issue of trainers transporting trained Assistance Dogs vs. dogs in training. Some airlines report an uptick in fraud of passengers claiming they are trainers in order to transport their pet dogs or breeders transporting dogs for commercial purposes, e.g. sales. That is why we will emphasize the value of ADI accredited organizations when we discuss this issue.
Charts
The chart provide an overview of each airline’s policies, whether the forms are accessible and links to the section of their websites pertaining to traveling with Assistance Dogs.
The chart provides an overview of each airline's policies for Trainers flying with assistance dogs.
The chart in the Excel documents format to be accessible for readers who are blind or have low vision.
Big Thank You’s
This was a TEAM effort by many people.
Please join me in thanking Sheila O’Brien and the members of the ADI NA Legislative and Advocacy Committee for their hard work in making the skies friendlier for the people we serve:
Melissa Allman, Seeing Eye – Melissa joined our committee recently. She filled out both DOT forms on every airline to determine whether they were accessible for blind and low vision passengers. She has participated in every meeting with the airlines and has contributed enormously to our progress in increasing the accessibility of the DOT forms.
Al Peters, Can Do Canines, retired
Danielle Forbes, National Service Dogs
Gerry DeRoche, NEADS, retired
Jim Kennedy, Hawaii Fido, retired
Paige Mazzoni, CCI
Rick Yount, Warrior Canine Connection
Al, Dani, Gerry, Jim, Paige and Rick all helped research and draft our position papers for DOT over two years of communications with the DOT.
December 2, 2020 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
US DOT Service Animal Final Rule
US DOT Service Animal Final Rule FAQ
ADI NA Membership Talking Points
Training Programs Approve New DOT Rules for Flying With Service Dogs
NEW YORK December 2, 2020 – The federal government has updated the rules for flying with service animals – and organizations that train those dogs approve of the updates.
“For years, untrained dogs and other animals have posed a threat to disabled passengers flying with legitimately trained service dogs,” says Sheila O’Brien, chair of Assistance Dogs International, North America (ADI NA). “In a survey of our graduates, 25% reported attacks by untrained dogs on flights.”
ADI NA includes 99 service dog training programs, which have trained nearly 17,000 guide and service dogs currently working in North America. 
The new rules update the Air Carrier Access Act, which governs accessibility for air travel. The biggest change, and that most applauded by the service dog training industry, is the new definition of “service animal.” It will now align the Americans With Disabilities Act’s definition. Service animals will now be defined only as dogs, no longer including other types of animals. The dogs must be trained to perform actual tasks that mitigate their human partner’s disability. Emotional support animals will no longer be considered service animals. This means that they will have to travel as pets, in crates or other carriers.
“People with disabilities depend on their service dogs to live independently” says Sheri Soltes, vice chair of ADI NA and chair of the ADI NA Legislative and Advocacy Committee. “With the new DOT rules, airline passengers with disabilities who use trained service dogs, can travel safely without the risk of themselves or their dogs being attacked by out of control animals.”
“Those animals also posed a risk to other passengers, airline staff and the public,” she adds.
The new rules also classify psychiatric service dogs as service animals. “Psychiatric service dogs wake up their partners from nightmares, turn lights on in a dark room so their person feels safe entering it and perform other customized tasks to help them with psychiatric disabilities such as post-traumatic stress disorder,” explains O’Brien. “Their high level of training, including behavior in public, justifies classifying them as service animals. All of our ADI NA member organizations and thousands of graduates welcome the DOT’s new rules.”
Access and Laws
View links for information on public access laws for Canada
View links for information on public access laws for the United States of America
Advocacy and Legislative Committee
The ADI North America Regional Advocacy and Legislative Committee works on policy regional issues that affect our member organizations and their clients. Their charter is to support ADI NA organizations through advocacy on legal issues at the national and international levels in the United States and Canada. Jeff Johnson and Melissa Allman are the co-chairs of the committee.
Airline Access Campaign
The ADI North America Airline Accessibility Campaign has added an education toolkit that is available below. The goal of this campaign is to educate airport/airline personnel and the US Department of Transportation on access rights and expected service animal behavior for people with disabilities traveling with service animals. With every program's help, we will further position Assistance Dogs International as the expert in the field of assistance dogs and the one to consult when laws and access related issues are challenged. These efforts are ultimately to provide for easier access for all of our graduate teams.
We encourage every ADI NA member program to educate their local airport personnel with the assistance of a PowerPoint that has been developed. Contacting the marketing and communications department of your local airport is a good starting point, if you don't already have a contact. After presenting this material, please fill out the form on the link below so that we can track which airports this has been shared and determine which ones we need to target more specifically. These is also an airline access campaign poster that can be shared in a printed format of any size that describes the differences between service dogs, emotional support animals and pets. ADI NA encourages each program to supply their graduate teams with an ADI accredited member logo or patch on their working dogs' vests/capes or equipment to help identify our graduates while in airports and the general public.
Click HERE for the Airline Access Campaign Toolkit PowerPoint Presentation
Airline Access Campaign Toolkit Poster
Link to Completed Presentation Form
New Potential Member Submission
The ADI NA Board of Directors is asking for our members help to identify assistance dog organizations in your community that are not a member of ADI. Please complete the form to submit the name and possible contact information.
ADI NA Regional Council
Bev Crandell, Lions Foundation Canada Dog Guides, Canada, Chairperson
Jillian Ashton, Indiana Canine Assistant Network (ICAN), USA
Susan Armstrong, Guide Dogs for the Blind, USA
Jeff Johnson, Can Do Canines, USA
Jeanine Konopelski, Canine Companions for Independence, USA
Bethany Leighton, Canines for Service, USA
David Locklin, Guide Dog Foundation, USA
Deb Tack, Susquehanna Service Dogs, USA
Rick Yount, Warrior Canine Connection, USA
Contact ADI NA
Gabi Da Silva
Staff Support to ADI North America