November 30, 2000
Pig Had Right to Fly First Class, F.A.A. Says
By REUTERS
ASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — Aviation regulators said today that US
Airways did nothing wrong in allowing a 300-pound pet pig to fly first class
last month from Philadelphia to Seattle.
The pig, owned by a woman with a heart condition who says the animal's presence helps relieve stress, ran squealing through the Boeing 757 on landing, soiling the cabin.
But the Federal Aviation Administration's flight standards office here decided that the pig complied with a Department of Transportation policy on allowing individuals with disabilities to travel with their animals.
Airlines needed only credible verbal assurances that the animal was a legitimate service animal, the agency said.
The agency has no recommendations on how to carry pigs in the future. "The carriers will have to cross that sty when they come to it," said an agency spokesman, Jim Peters.
But a spokesman for US Airways, David Castelveter, said future requests for travel with service animals would be carefully evaluated.
"An incident like this will not happen again," Mr. Castelveter
-- Anonymous, November 30, 2000