[liuhenry]

I'm sympathetic to this point, but won't it continue to be a problem as long as airlines still allow pets?

The DOT ruling cites an industry statistic that 784k pets and 751k ESAs were transported in 2017 [1]. I can certainly believe that it's grown more lopsided since then, but it still seems that a significant number of flights would have animals on them after this rule takes effect.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2020-12/S...