Frontier Airlines festoons its planes with pictures of all sorts of wild animals, but it’s less happy when they make their way onboard.
A passenger had to be removed from a Frontier flight from Orlando to Cleveland Tuesday night after attempting to fly with an “emotional support squirrel”. The incident caused the flight to be delayed by two hours.
The elderly woman, who was not identified, did alert the airline she was bringing an emotional support animal on board, but did not mention it was a squirrel, which the carrier does not allow. (Frontier only allows cats and dogs.)
When asked to deplane, she allegedly refused. Police had the other passengers disembark while they dealt with the matter.
Video posted on social media shows the woman being taken off the flight in a wheelchair while flipping the bird at some other passengers, before giving others the thumbs up.
— Brandon Nixon (@bnix4) October 10, 2018
Frontier, ironically, flies an Airbus A320-214 jet that features a picture of “Sammy the Squirrel”. It’s unknown (and, frankly, unlikely) if that was the jet passengers were trying to board.
Airlines have been struggling with the matter of emotional support animals for over a year as some passengers have tried to bring increasingly exotic creatures on board, including an emotional support peacock.
Delta altered its policy so that it became stricter in January. United followed suit in February. Alaska Airlines did so in April and JetBlue did in June.
Don’t worry, though. You can still bring your miniature horse onboard Southwest flights as of now.