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Woman drug off Southwest flight after claiming allergy to dogs onboard

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Flight was from Baltimore to LAX

A woman was forcibly removed from a Southwest flight when told flight attendants that she is deathly allergic to a couple dogs who were also on the flight. She requested that the dogs be taken off the flight. When flight attendants asked her to provide documentation of her allergy she couldn’t produce any documentation and as a result asked her to leave the flight. The incident escalated and law enforcement was called into remove her. Southwest has apologized for the incident, but what’s even more unbelievable, is that after all the hullabalu – the flight still arrived on time!

H/T CBS NEWS

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8 Comments

  • arthur September 27, 2017

    you don’t have to have documentation to claim a peanut allergy and not have peanuts served on a plane so why should someone have to carry documentation for an allergy to dogs. questions arise as to whether the dogs were in a carrier or just sitting outside. i believe that the must be in a carrier or a licensed service dog to be outside a carrier. did the crew ask for documentation about the status of the animals…doubt it. what the crew should have done is move the woman with the allergy to the front of the plane and keep the dogs in the back where they seemed to be located. very poor handling of this situation by southwest. the police as in other situations on airplanes seemed to be excessive in their handling of this woman. this will probably cost southwest and the baltimore police in the courts when it all could have probably been avoided by some creative thinking. if she called ahead and told southwest that she had an allergy why should she not be allowed to fly. why shouldn’t the passenger with the animals be put on another flight. Don’t think animals should be of higher priority than humans….with possible exception of service animal for blind or disabled person…..otherwise emotional support animals should not have same priority.

  • Karen September 27, 2017

    If someone truly does have an allergy that could be life-threatening, I would think they’d call ahead to see if any animals were booked on the flight, or at the very least, ask the gate attendant. The time to inform or take precautions when you have a potentially deadly allergy is not after you’ve boarded and noticed there are animals on board.

    • Miles September 27, 2017

      Yeah, I think that this is a good lesson that if you do claim something you’d better have proof. It’ll be interesting to see how the story unfolds, I’m sure if she has the allergy we are going to hear A LOT about it.

  • Tony September 27, 2017

    Dragged*

  • Eric September 27, 2017

    What I don’t get is that once security and/or the police show up, don’t these people realize they will NEVER be allowed to stay on the flight? Right or Wrong that’s never going to happen. You’re wasting your breath and energy. Get off the plane, state your case, get on another flight (if you’re lucky and don’t get detained).

    • Miles September 27, 2017

      Eric – yeah I think emotions are running so high that reason is out the window.

  • Ric Garrido September 27, 2017

    “dragged off Southwest flight” more acceptable grammar.

  • Spellchecker September 27, 2017

    Dragged, not drug

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