Albert Rizzi and his service dog were Long Island bound, departing from Philadelphia. A US Airways flight attendant told him his service dog must remain under the seat in front on him. Other passengers offered to accommodate the dog, but after a delay, the dog simply curled up under Rizzi's legs. That is when things went from
bad to worse:
Passenger Frank Ohlhorst described what happened.
"When we, the passengers, realized what was going on, we were, like, 'Why is this happening? He's not a problem. What is going on?'" said Ohlhorst. "And we all kind of raised our voices and said, 'This is a real problem.' The captain came out of the cockpit and he basically asked us all to leave the aircraft."
The airline says both the dog and the unrest among the passengers created a safety hazard as defined by its operating protocols.
The flight was eventually cancelled.
Albert Rizzi and several other passengers ended up taking a bus to Philadelphia (provided by US Airways.)
US Airways has issued a statement:
For its part, a spokesperson for US Airways released a statement that confirmed that “on flight 4384 from Philadelphia to Islip, Long Island a customer with a seeing eye dog was asked to keep his dog near his feet when the dog was walking up and down the aisle. The protocol for service animals is to keep them at foot of the passenger, or under the seat, as they are considered extensions of the passenger. When a flight attendant asked the passenger to keep the dog where it needed to stay for safety reasons the passenger got verbally abusive. A decision was made to return to the gate to take the passenger and the dog off the plane. At that point, other customers were unhappy about the situation. The crew did not feel comfortable operating the plane so a decision was made to cancel the flight and U S Airways bussed the passengers to Islip NY.”
See Albert Rizzi's account here: