A woman flying from Orlando to Cleveland was removed from the flight by police after she was told that her "emotional support" squirrel was not allowed on the plane. The woman alerted Frontier Airlines that she had an emotional support animal before arriving at the airport but did not mention the type of animal she planned to bring.
Once she boarded the plane, the flight crew told the woman that Frontier's Emotional Support Animal Policy bans passengers from flying with "rodents, reptiles, insects, hedgehogs, rabbits, sugar gliders, non-household birds or improperly cleaned and/or animals with a foul odor."
She was asked to deplane and refused, forcing the flight crew to call Orlando police. The police ordered everybody off of the plane before escorting the woman from her seat. It is unclear whether the unidentified woman was charged by police for her actions.
The flight was delayed for two hours, though most of the passengers had a laugh at the delay. USA Today spoke with Julia Papesch, who was on the flight and shared a video of the woman being wheeled off the plane by a staff member.
"We all got on the plane, and then we were sitting there for a while. All of a sudden someone came over the intercom and said that we all had to deplane. I thought something was wrong with the engine," Papesch said. "I kept hearing things about a squirrel, so I was asking people around me and someone said we did have to deplane because of a squirrel."