Howdy Jim, due to the ADA (Americans with Disablitiy Act) you would never see a service animal in the cargo. To be honest I am allergic to small children....think we could ever get them in cargo...it is after all pressurized and heated :)

Now there's an idea! Turn a heated/pressurized section of the hold into a play area, complete with those colored ball pits the kids thrash around in. ;-)

Hi Leatherboy,
Been a while since I have seen a post from you... welcome back! I gather the ADA doesn't apply to the airlines, but DOT regulations require service animals to be carried in the cabin. I think that should be changed. In Europe, most airlines ban animals in the cabin... and guess what? People travel just fine, and they manage to do it without their geese in the cabin.

Not much we can do about your "allergy" to kids Leatherboy... I am guessing there are less of them in First Class... and I guess your business is recession proof so may be you will be one of the few who can still afford it!

Exactly. It's known as the Air Carrier Access Act. If ADA applied on planes all aisles would have to be wide enough to accommodate standard wheelchairs and all lavs would have to be ADA compliant as well.

I don't think there will be any radical changes in the form of regulation of in-cabin pets. Up until a few months ago Southwest did not allow pets at all. They made the decision to allow, for a fee, pets in the cabin. I'm sure the only reason they changed their policy was money. They figured out they were losing out on potential business from people who travel with their pets. In this economy if an airline isn't making money from a certain aspect of it's operation it will eliminate it. I'm sure if the fees collected for transporting pets wasn't more than offsetting the cost of doing so an airline would have done away with carrying pets. As long as they're making even a meager profit expect to see pets in the cabin.

Actually ADA does cover and I found out this is the clincher a US flag carrier, several times I have helped families book elderly or handicapped relatives to come in for wakes and funerals and have found out that ADA does cover and enforced on US flag carriers.
Howdy Jim, got back up first in paperwork, we took on the project of documenting a local cemetery and found out it had very many unmarked graves so it was fun(not) trying to figure who was buried were(some should have had markers but were over 100 yrs old and the markers most have been broken or vandalised) and then ended up with swine and knocked down about 3 wks with it.
hope everyone has been playing nice :)