It won't be as easy as it used to be to bring comfort animals on a Delta flight

Delta passengers who wish to bring emotional-support animals with them on flights now face tighter restrictions. Beginning March 1, passengers must provide a letter signed by a doctor or licensed mental-health professional attesting to the passenger's need to travel with the animal and a letter that states the animal can behave out of a kennel.

From USA Today:

Because of a vague definition for what qualifies, Delta said passengers have brought turkeys, possums and snakes on planes as comfort animals.

Delta said it won't accept those critters as comfort animals any more - or other exotic animals such as hedgehogs, ferrets, reptiles, or anything with tusks or hooves.

Comfort animals can be discomforting to others. Incidents of animals urinating, defecating and biting, and behaving more aggressively with growling and lunging, have increased dramatically in recent years, according to the airline.

In one highly publicized case in June, an emotional-support dog bit a neighboring passenger in the face during the boarding of a flight from Atlanta to San Diego.

"The rise in serious incidents involving animals in flight leads us to believe that the lack of regulation in both health and training screening for these animals is creating unsafe conditions across U.S. air travel," Laughter said. "We are committed to consistently improving our policies, prioritizing the safety of all Delta customers and employees."

My seatmate, CLTaiAVL, is this handsome duck named Daniel. His gentle quacking eases the sadness of leaving #SFA16. pic.twitter.com/iDKWCceAFi

- Mark Essig (@mark_essig) October 16, 2016

Image: DanDee Shots/Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.