Luke Diaz is a freelance military writer with experience with active duty experience in the US Navy as well as defense and industrial engineering. He is a former Naval Flight Officer who performed tactical air control on the carrier-based E-2 Hawkeye.
Sign in to your Simple Flying account
A 
Southwest Airlines flight attendant is suing the low-cost carrier for alleged discrimination against her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lisa Diane Patterson claims that her employer refused to accommodate her severe allergy, according to the suit filed as 'Patterson v. Southwest Airlines Co.', as covered by HR Dive.
When scheduled to work a flight with animals present, Patterson says that the carrier only offered the option to go home without pay or endure the flight in the case that no other FA was voluntarily willing to switch shifts. The FA says that this resulted in substantial income loss for her as well as illness when she elected to attempt to work flights with pets present in the cabin.
A Flight Attendant's Plea To The C-Suite Falls On Deaf Ears
Patterson alleged that when she encountered flights with cats or dogs in her working section, Southwest management told her that no accommodation could be made. Patterson claims to have written a letter directly to Southwest's vice president of in-flight operations in 2018, when the company updated its policy to allow only cats and dogs as support animals. In her words, the VP responded about three months later, only to flatly refuse and offer no alternatives.
She attempted to navigate the mandate of the airline with proposals to reseat passengers bringing their pets into a different cabin section from the one where she was working, which was also rejected. Following a series of failed attempts to resolve the matter with management, Patterson demanded a jury trial to pursue damages and other compensation for what she claims to be discriminatory business practices.
The lawsuit notes that because colleagues rarely agreed to switch, she rarely had any option other than to lose a paycheck and suffer through her allergic reaction for the duration of the flight. She has sued the airline on the premise of unlawful employment practices to seek punitive damages. Beyond simply seeking to remedy her own situation, the FA is also pursuing an injunction against the airline to prevent Southwest from repeating the same practices in the future.
The Challenges Of Emotional Support Animals In The Air
The 2018 policy change by Southwest was made under the permissive rules laid out by the Air Carrier Access Act. This guidance legally allows for a wide range of Emotional Support Animals to be brought on board for free as long as they are officially endorsed by a mental health professional. For Southwest's part, the airline limits pets exclusively to cats and dogs, with no other species permitted.
The result has been a challenge for cabin crew and airlines alike to manage the increased complexity of operating safe and clean flights while also accommodating more service animals. Because ESAs do not require formal training like task-oriented service dogs, airlines faced a spike in incidents involving animal aggression, biting, barking, and animals urinating or defecating in the cabin.
In the lawsuit, the flight attendant argues that moving a passenger with a pet to another part of the plane was a minor change. From Southwest’s operational and risk management perspective, the airline likely refused her accommodation requests due to the open seating policy of its previous model, as well as the legal requirements of balancing compliance with competing disability laws.
Managing ADA Compliance While Keeping Americans Moving On Time
Airlines frequently run into the legal concept of competing accommodations. Under the ADA, Southwest is legally obligated to accommodate employees with disabilities. However, under the ACAA, they are also legally required to accommodate passengers traveling with trained service or psychiatric support animals.
Southwest essentially treated the pet policy as an unalterable operational baseline. Their stance was that if an employee could not be in the cabin with cats or dogs, they could not perform the 'essential functions' of being a Southwest flight attendant.
Patterson's roadblock was compounded by the fact that airline management must navigate the confines of its terms under the collective bargaining agreements, which outline FA working conditions. These agreements dictate how flight schedules, routing, and aircraft staffing are assigned, entirely based on seniority.
Southwest's management could have argued that forcing other flight attendants to swap cabin sections or trade flights to accommodate her allergy would violate the union's strict seniority and scheduling protections. In employment law, accommodation is legally deemed 'unreasonable' if it violates a collective bargaining agreement or heavily burdens coworkers.