Tricia L.

On March 10th, 2024 I took a flight from LAX to Newark on Jet Blue. I was accompanied by my service dog. I never flew Jet Blue with my service dog before and was unaware that they were much more difficult to deal with than the other major airlines when it comes to service animals. For United, my usual airline, I usually call a day or so before my flight to let them know my service dog will be coming with me. So I called Jet Blue a day before my flight and the representative on the phone was rude and unhelpful. She essentially shamed me for not being aware of their 48 hour policy of informing them and providing them with proper documentation. She told me my only option would be to go up to the help desk at the airport the day of. I had a bad feeling based off of her attitude but was hopeful my experience would be better at LAX. Everything got much much worse that morning. I waited on a long line at the help center and finally reached a representative. She seemed baffled that the phone representative told her she could help. After going back and forth for a bit she called her supervisor. He asked for my DOT form in which I was readily able to provide him. After reviewing he said to me, "I am going to ask you one question" in which I replied, ok. He asked me what task my dog is trained to do for me. I gave him the answer of "reminding me to take my medication" in which he replied "how does she do that?". He wanted me to elaborate without me providing a diagnosis which was near impossible. I told him I have never been asked that before, I was in shock and uncomfortable. I did not want to answer. He explained he was denying my dog to board as a service dog on my flight. I felt degraded and humiliated. Not to mention now I was cutting super close to when the boarding doors for my flight would close. I agreed to pay the pet fee and to stuff my service dog under my seat. Trying to hold back tears I got to the security line and realized there was no way my fiancé and I would make it to our flight. We saw an area for CLEAR and quickly signed up dropping even more unexpected money. After cutting the whole clear line we had to run through the airport with my service dog. Just wait it gets worse.
The next day I really was able to reflect on just how disgusting and wrong this situation was so I decided I would escalate this as high as I could via the phone customer service so they can hear my side. The first time I called I spent an hour of my day on the phone. At first, I spoke with a very kind and empathetic representative. She seemed speechless and horrified by the incident and was perfidiously apologizing. I told her I at least wanted there to be an investigation and to get the pet fee back. She was clearly relaying this to someone above her because she kept putting me on hold. Finally, she came back on and said her manager said they "cannot refund the pet fee because we already flew". I demanded to speak to her manager myself. To no surprise her manager was an unkind disgrace and told me "I should have done my research" acting like it was my fault I didn't know their policy. She ended up hanging up on me. I called one more time to see if I could speak to someone else and I was put through to another representative whose ranking I am not sure of. She told me the best she could do was fill out a claim for me and submit it. She was nice enough, but no one seems to really care about this issue which I am thinking is borderline if not totally illegal.
At this point it is not only about the extra money that I spent that I shouldn't have had to, but how this could affect other people. I have read other posts about Jet Blue mistreating other passengers with service dogs and I am saddened. Something needs to be done because a huge corporation like this cannot continue to mistreat, degrade, and discriminate against disabled passengers.