Service dogs play an essential role in supporting persons with disabilities (PwD), and their use in air travel is a growing focus in the broader effort to enhance transportation accessibility. However, the sum of inconsistent service dog definitions, verification processes, and handling procedures represents challenges for both airlines and PwD.
To address these issues, IATA launched a Service Dogs Task Force to review current practices, develop non-binding service dog guidance for airlines, and identify potential approaches and considerations.
The resulting document is designed to assist airlines in better understanding considerations related to the acceptance of service dogs, while supporting the integrity of accessibility policies across the aviation industry. The guidance is intended to be dynamic, able to reflect ongoing changes in laws, regulations, and policies governing service dogs within specific jurisdictions.
An interview with Linda Ristagno, Assistant Director Customer Experience and Facilitation at IATA.
Inconsistent but improving! We are witnessing strong awareness and clear intent, with most organizations now viewing accessibility both as a responsibility and an important part of customer experience. The main challenge resides in making it a reality. Delivery still varies widely across regions, providers, and different parts of the process. And accessibility is too rarely built from A to Z, resulting in customers facing unpredictable experiences, with an overdependence on individual efforts rather than reliable systems. To sum it up, commitment exists, standards are shaping, but more consistency and reliability are required.
Handling service dogs is complicated and inconsistent. Airlines are dealing with changing rules, heterogeneous national standards, increasing numbers of passengers travelling with animals, and confusion between real service dogs and pets misidentified as such. The Service Dogs Task Force was established to address all these issues, bringing together:
This multi-stakeholder approach was critical, ensuring the guidance reflects operational realities while staying grounded in PwD needs and rights.
The guidance clarifies what differentiates service dogs from pets. The former are individually trained to perform specific tasks for PwD and are considered essential mobility or assistance aids. In contrast, pets - including emotional support animals - do not have the same level of training or regulatory status and are therefore subject to standard pet transport rules. This distinction is important, as a lack of clarity has led to inconsistent acceptance policies and challenges for both passengers and frontline staff.
Three main takeaways for airlines:
The guidance is meant to make the system more consistent, trustworthy, and predictable, all the while protecting rights for passengers needing service dogs, and to give airlines clearer, more practical ways to manage this safely and consistently.
Most challenges stem from inconsistent, complex rules across the ecosystem.
The lack of homogeneous regulation and paperwork from one country to another represents a major hurdle for international airlines to propose a clear unified policy, ultimately confusing passengers. This includes dog eligibility, adding pressure on airlines.
Practical issues must also be considered, as allowing service dogs onboard affects seating, cabin safety, space and comfort. For example, some passengers could have allergies or different cultural views. Addressing these factors consistently remains a complex endeavour.
Frontline staff need adequate training to handle situations with confidence, particularly when lacking clear guidance or appropriate tools, which can lead to inconsistent case handling and worse customer experience.
Lastly, the overarching issue: ensuring everyone works together! Accessibility is not just about airlines. It affects airports, security, and ground staff. All these groups must be aligned to ensure a satisfying customer experience from start to finish.
This is just the beginning. The three main next steps are:
All these will ensure dog travel is handled consistently and confidently at every stage. Improvement is key. The guidance must be updated based on feedback received after implementation, daily operations and experiences, as well as continued conversations with disability communities.
The two are complementary. Despite different scopes, their objective remains the same: ensuring a more consistent and accessible travel experience. The IATA guidance focuses primarily on industry-wide alignment, providing airlines with a global framework that clarifies definitions, establishes best practices, and helps reduce fragmentation in policies and procedures. The INCLAVI project, which also includes a module on assistance dogs, focuses more particularly on capacity-building and practical implementation. The connection is about bridging theory and practice: the IATA guidance helps define what success looks like at a global level, while INCLAVI helps stakeholders understand how to deliver it on the ground.
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