On Sunday evening, Joanna Jones with her seeing eye dog Orla tried to board a flight at London’s Gatwick Airport for Belfast, Northern Ireland. There was nothing different about her routine that day and she had been flying with seeing eye dogs for over 12 years with no incident. In fact only a week before she had taken a flight to England to see her parents no one asked her for special paperwork then or any of the other times she has flown.
She was booked on an Easyjet flight from London to Belfast on Sunday evening and had pre-booked assistance with the airline alerting them to the fact that she would be bringing her service dog on the plane with her. By the time anyone at EasyJet had said Orla could not get on the plane without proof she was in fact a trained guide dog there was only 15 minutes until the plane doors would be closed. Orla was wearing her usual bright yellow harness and identifying tag telling people she is in fact a guide dog as she does anytime she is working.
Staff at Easyjet admitted that they could see Orla was a guide dog, but said that Jones needed to provide the paperwork to “make her flight more ‘comfortable’. Easyjet policy specifies that documentation is required, but they “will accept the dogs identity tag attached to the dogs official working harness and the identity card of the owner”. So why did they decide that their own policy was no longer good enough even though only a week before it clearly had been. Was someone not trained properly in procedure or does Easyjet have two differing Service dog policies? It seems like a combination of a lot of factors because there are two different policies one that allows for the tag and harness to substitute for papers and one that insists on papers. Still if everything else was in order and they could confirm Ms. Jones did in fact fly with another airline the week before accompanied by Orla why couldn’t they let her on the plane and told her to get paperwork for next time or fax it to them on Monday when she would have been able to get in touch with.
It seems this certificate the airlines was asking for is not routinely given to Guide Dog owners or something they are told to call about for before flights. Apparently other disabled passengers have had a problem with EasyJet in the past but were eventually allowed to board the plane without this special paperwork. Apparently Guide Dogs need special training to lay down on planes and not walk around or bother other passengers around them and this special training is proven with this piece of paper.
What more proof does she need?! Obviously if the woman was blind, the dog with her was a service dog!!! They don’t seriously think a blind person would pretend to use an ordinary dog as a guide dog, do they?
I am blind and own a guide dog and have had to show proof that he is a certified guide dog before. Anybody can slap a harness on a dog and call it a guide dog, believe me I know of at least three instances where somebody has tried to fake it with their dog so yeah, owning proof that your dog is a service animal is a good idea if you wanna travel.
I actually know a family that got papers for their 6 month old labradoodle to say it was a guide dog in training so they could fly with her in the cabin of the plane. A total scam. On the other hand, I’m with Dawn…the lady was obviously blind. How officious do people have to be?