Delta ends emotional support animal ban, keeps pit bull ban

To comply with new federal guidance, Delta Air Lines is discontinuing a ban on emotional support animals on flights longer than eight hours.

However, the airline is not changing its ban on pit bulls as service animals — even though the U.S. Department of Transportation issued guidance saying such a ban on a breed is not allowed. Delta put in place the ban on pit bulls as service or support animals in 2018 after two employees were bitten by a passenger’s emotional support dog.

The DOT in a guidance document last month said it “views a limitation based exclusively on breed of the service animal to not be allowed under its service animal regulation,” and that airlines should not automatically prohibit service animals or emotional support animals on flights lasting eight or more hours. It said airlines had 30 days to comply.

Delta said Monday that effective immediately, it is lifting its ban on emotional support animals on flights longer than eight hours, less than a year after instituting the policy.

But the airline said pit bulls account for less than 5 percent of the dog population and 37.5 percent of vicious dog attacks. “Delta has not come to a solution for allowing pit bulls onboard that satisfies its own rigorous safety requirements,” the company said in a press release. “We continue to work with the DOT to find solutions that support the rights of customers who have legitimate needs to travel with trained animals.”

The airline said it had more than 40 instances of aggressive animal behavior on Delta planes last year. Allison Ausband, Delta’s senior vice president of in-flight service overseeing flight attendants, said in a statement: “I will do everything I can to keep (flight attendants) safe and send them home to their families in the same condition they came to work.”

The DOT said in its document that conforming with the guidance “is voluntary only” and that its guidance “is not legally binding in its own right.”