Passengers too often treat planes like Noah’s Ark – bringing two of each kind of animal on board, claiming they’re for emotional support. Supposedly the FAA worked with airlines to ban the practice seven years ago, but in reality that just meant that passengers have to do some paperwork – self-certifying that their pet is a service animal.
That actually helps – because venn diagram between “those who want to bring cute dogs on planes and pet them throughout the flight” and “those who are good at doing paperwork” has very limited overlap! Still, the practice persists.
Over Thanksgiving my Delta flight turned around because a woman on board hadn’t done the paperwork for her support animal. They removed her from the aircraft and then… let her fill out the paperwork. Then our flight was further delayed while we waited to refuel.
There are still passengers who do things the right way. They make a pet in cabin reservation. They pay the fee. Their carry-on pet takes the place of a carry-on bag. But there are still rules!
- The eligible dog or cat must stay in their carrier throughout the flight
- The carrier must meet required dimensions, fitting underneath the seat, and be large enough for the animal to move around in comfortably.
Here’s a woman that didn’t get the memo. She brought her pet in cabin, brought the carrier, but the dog is walking around at the gate because the carrier isn’t large enough. An employee calls her out for this, and lets her know that if she doesn’t have a carrier that the dog will fit into, then they can’t fly. So the woman tries to prove that the dog fits.
Please say sike right NEOWWWW pic.twitter.com/ccAF3ILr6M
— Mesh (@rahsh33m) March 24, 2025
The video was originally posted to TikTok, where a commenter described what the passenger was doing, “She literally folded the dog in the carrier” and another, “the way she pushed the dog’s head down to make him fit ”
The dog has to be able to stand up in the carrier and turn around comfortably. The woman clearly knew her carrier was too small. She was willing to pay a pet in cabin fee – but not pay for a humane carrier. Perhaps she assumed nobody would check, and she wasn’t going to keep it in the carrier anyway?
Ultimately, after all of the theatrics trying to claim that the dog really did fit and really could turn inside the bag, the employee was a hard no. The quality of discourse on TikTok isn’t especially high, but here are a few of gems:
“That dog can fit in that carrier just like I can fit in a pair of size 5 jeans lol ”
“That carrier is too damn small. Even Stevie Wonder can see that.”
“She thought she was doing a Vegas magic trick”
“Why she put that big ole giraffe in a lunch bag omg ”
With dogs going potty on planes, bumping first class passengers out of their seats, and enjoying sit down dining in business class lounges all because passengers claim their pet is a service animal, I almost have sympathy for this woman at least not going through that ruse.
Almost.