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Flight Passenger Takes Her Mini Horse On The Plane With Her

Flight Passenger Takes Her Mini Horse On The Plane With Her

You’ll believe this when pigs can fly.

Well we’re probably not far away from that after a service horse was allowed on an American Airlines flight last week. That’s right, a HORSE was on a plane with other human passengers. Now to be fair, this was a mini horse, but a horse is a horse of course.

The New York Post writes that on a flight from Chicago to Omaha, “Flirty” the miniature service horse was on the job for her handler Abrea Hensley, who actually maintains a Twitter and Instagram account for her viral equine. The flight went well but Hensley commented that she doesn’t think she will take her trusty steed on a plane again.

Here she posted to her Twitter account her experience:

“Flirty and I took to the skies, yesterday! It was a great experience and I learned a lot. Flirty was FANTASTIC and handled it all like a pro. That being said, I’m going to keep traveling by car, it’s just easier on Flirty. Flying will be reserved for emergencies and such. It’s just too difficult to make sure Flirty doesn’t inconvenience other passengers. Because my airport is smaller, the planes are smaller and don’t have solid bulkheads. Flirty couldn’t help jostling seat of the person in the last row of first class every time she moved. Once we got up to cruising altitude, she took a nap and was very quiet. But she had to rebalance quite a bit while ascending and descending and kept bumping the back of their seat through the curtain ‘bulkhead.’ She did such a good job of handling everything, though, I’m so proud of her! I couldn’t have asked for better behavior.”

Hensley suffers from PTSD, and is allergic to dogs, so Flirty provides mobility assistance and reminds her to take her medications. Flirty previously worked as a show pony, but has now changed careers to the medical and support field.

This fun and harmless plane ride did cause some controversy however. Comedian Whitney Cummings was not a fan of this display and talked about it on her Twitter account:

“This is no doubt incredibly stressful and distracting for the people on board, but it’s also stressful for the horse. They’re prey animals and are not designed to be going 500 miles through the sky. If you’re too nervous to fly, take a train or Xanax.”

Many people think support animals are just a joke and are people’s depraved cries for attention or just a reason to take their pets everywhere with them.

Tell us what you think about this issue.