US News

Woman kicked off flight after pet pig stinks up plane

Her pot-bellied pet will be welcome on this airplane — when pigs fly!

A woman was booted from a US Airways flight in Connecticut because her pet pig was pacing around and stinking up the cabin, passengers said on Friday.

Other travelers thought the woman was shlepping a dark-colored duffle bag over her shoulder, when she boarded the plane on Wednesday, they said.

But it turned out to be a 70-pound pot-bellied pig, which became “disruptive” before the plane took off, a spokesman for the airline told ABC News.

“Turns out, it wasn’t a duffel bag. We could smell it — and it was a pig on a leash,” passenger Jonathan Skolnik, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told ABC.

Skolnik, who was seated next to the pig, was furious about the woman’s four-legged travel buddy.

“She tethered it to the arm rest next to me and started to deal with her stuff — but the pig was walking back and forth,” he fumed.

Rob Phelps
“I was terrified, because I was thinking I’m gonna be on the plane with the pig,” Skolnik added.

Crew members asked the woman and her porky pal to leave after passengers complained he was, well, hogging too much space, the airline spokesman said.

The woman had brought the curly-tailed pet aboard as an “emotional support animal,” the company rep said.

Emotional support animals — including pigs — are allowed on flights, under federal rules drafted in 2012.

Monkeys, cats and even miniature horses all qualify as “emotional support” animals.

It’s up to transportation officials to decide which animals are too disruptive to travel on an airplanes.

Pigs make great service animals for people allergic to dogs, experts and animal lovers have said.

They are intelligent and tuned into their owners, experts say.

The flight number and airport from which the plane was departing were not immediately clear on Friday.