The US DOT Pet Relief Area Rule: A Plain-English Explainer
How a single line of US federal regulation transformed the airport experience for travellers with pets and service animals.
On August 5, 2016, the US Department of Transportation published a final rule amending 14 CFR 382.51 to require US commercial airports to provide post-security pet relief areas. The rule took effect in 2017 and applies to every airport that handled 10,000 or more annual enplanements in the most recent reporting year.
The text of the rule is short. Each covered airport, in cooperation with each airline that operates there, must establish a service animal relief area in each terminal that is:
- Located within the secure (post-security) area of the terminal - Wheelchair-accessible - Marked with appropriate signage - Available for use by passengers travelling with service animals and pets
The DOT did not prescribe specific design features such as turf type, drainage, or hand-washing facilities. Instead, the rule required airports to consult with appropriate disability organisations on design and to provide a relief area that meets the practical needs of working service animals.
In practice, every covered US airport now provides at least one indoor post-security relief area per terminal. Most have gone substantially beyond the minimum: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Los Angeles, Dallas Fort Worth, San Francisco, Seattle Tacoma, and New York JFK all maintain multiple relief areas per terminal with synthetic turf, fire-hydrant markers, hand-washing stations, and signage in multiple languages.
The rule has had two notable side effects. First, it has dramatically improved the travel experience for handlers of working service dogs on long itineraries; pre-2017, a handler whose dog needed to relieve during a four-hour layover often had to leave security and re-clear the checkpoint. Second, the rule has been interpreted by most airports to apply to pets travelling under airline pet programs, not only to service animals — although the technical text limits the rule to service animals, airports have generally found it impractical to deny pet handlers access to the same facilities.
The rule does not apply to non-US airports, although several international airports — Vancouver, Toronto, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt — have voluntarily adopted similar practices.