Autism Service Dogs

The return trip from LA to Reno was both more and less challenging. We dealt with all the usual things: bathroom breaks for both of us, seating, and boarding. Our biggest challenge this time around was negotiating proper seating on a booked flight.

As with our maiden voyage, the accommodative seating I'm required to request at least 24 hours in advance wasn't properly handled ahead of time by the airline, and needed to be negotiated at the airport. This time around, the ticketing agent was more than happy to issue me bulkhead seating, despite the fact that it was located on an exit row. This would turn out to be a problem later.

When I got to the gate, I told the gate agent that we needed more time to get situated this time around, and that we hadn't been given adequate pre-boarding time on our previous segment. He graciously made sure that we were able to board as soon as the flight attendants boarded. This would have been plenty of time, had I not had to argue with one of the flight attendants about our seating arrangements.

When I got on the plane, the flight attendant told me that we could not sit in the exit row, even though we'd been issued the boarding pass in full knowledge by the ticketing agent. Not wishing to argue the matter, I again suggested that they simply clear a seat next to me. That's when the real argument ensued.

The flight attendant insisted that they didn't have to give me an additional seat unless I paid for another ticket, and that Glindy was required to fit under the seat in front of me. Naturally, all of this was wrong, but she was not willing to bend without considerable argument, and my insistence that failing to reach a mutual agreement would result in requiring the intervention of the Complaint Resolution Officer.

She finally agreed to show me the FAA regulations she thought supported her position, and was at least willing to accept defeat gracefully when I pointed to the language which showed that she was in error. So, she had the gate agent reassign me two adjacent seats, and I was pretty sure that we had resolved everything.

By this time, of course, the had already started general boarding, so we were once again thwarted in our attempts to get settled before people started queueing up behind us. At least the pre-boarding allowed us to hash out the seating issue in a timely way.

After everyone had boarded, though, she came up to me again and said that they had a pilot from another airline that they were trying to accommodate, and that he was willing to share leg space with my dog. It was more of a statement than a request, and I wasn't sure what my options were at that point, so I acquiesced to letting the pilot take the seat next to mine.

As I understand it, the pilot was trying to catch a ride home under a space-available program all airlines participate in. He was actually a nice guy, and was pretty understanding of the dog hair, position shifts, and other inconveniences of sharing the space with a service dog, so I'm glad we were able to accommodate each other in this particular instance.

In future, though, I want to make sure that Glindy and I aren't displaced without recourse, especially if we're on another type of plane where the floor space is less flexible. Even though both of us were being accommodated by the airline (e.g. neither one of us was paying for that extra seat), it is my gut feeling that my disability accommodation would trump a space-available passenger of any kind, but it's potentially a gray area. After all, the airlines are not required to bump any passengers off the flight to create an accommodation; the real question is whether a space-available passenger being denied boarding would be considered a "bump" or simply a lack of available space.

Either way, it worked out okay this time around. Glindy and I are a bit more experienced now, and have a better idea what to expect on our next trip. Hopefully, this new knowledge will help us navigate the airport experience more smoothly, and with better understanding of what accommodations to ask of each type of airline personnel.