These days just about anything goes when it comes to emotional support animals.
In Australia, a service kangaroo was kicked out of McDonald’s and a service pig was kicked off of a US Airways flight a couple of years back.
Recently, someone brought a monkey helper on a Frontier Airlines flight which caused some trouble, so to speak…
A man traveling on a Frontier Airlines flight from Columbus, Ohio to Las Vegas brought his emotional support marmoset along for the ride. One of the Frontier employees reported to McCarran Airport that a monkey was loose on the plane!
However, the story wasn’t exactly what it seemed. Upon landing, the airline mentioned that the monkey was not in a carrier so it was “technically loose in the cabin“, according to Travel + Leisure. The marmoset was actually an emotional support animal that stayed with his owner during the flight.
One of the flight attendants noticed the marmoset sticking out of his owner’s shirt. The man, Jason Ellis was then asked for the papers to show the marmoset was in fact an emotional support animal. He refused to show the documents or couldn’t get to them so the airline asked Vegas police to meet the plane at the gate upon landing.
A spokeswoman for the airport said that Ellis did actually have the proper paperwork which allowed him to have the marmoset on board.
TSA officials even went through the screening and a video shows Ellis going through security with his marmoset, Gizmo on his shoulder!
Frontier claims that Ellis did not inform the airline that he’d be bringing an emotional support marmoset on the flight! The police found that Ellis did nothing wrong and no charges were filed.
Find out more from T+L here.