Maria Fraterrigo, a grandmother from the Bronx, was booked in seat 4A on a flight from San Juan to Kennedy International Airport on Saturday night. But when she got to the gate for her return flight to New York, she said, an agent for Frontier Airlines stopped her.
Her companion, an African gray parrot named Plucky, which Ms. Fraterrigo has claimed as an emotional support animal and can say the names of her grandchildren, was on a no-fly list.
Despite being allowed to bring Plucky on her outbound Frontier flight without incident in January, she said, the agent told her that parrots were among several types of birds and other animals prohibited by the airline. She said that rule essentially left her stranded.
“This guy from the counter yells at me and tells me, ‘You’re not going to make this flight,’ ” Ms. Fraterrigo recalled in a phone interview on Wednesday. “ ‘Give it to somebody. Get rid of it.’ I said, ‘No way, I’m not going to get rid of my baby.’ ”
For four days, the 81-year-old widow’s travel plans were stuck in limbo, until Frontier appeared to have relented, ticketing her on another flight scheduled for Wednesday night. Plucky was expected to be in tow when Ms. Fraterrigo, completing her first trip since losing her husband in 2019, finally got to board.
Her situation illustrated the tension between airlines and passengers over what kinds of animals are permitted on commercial flights, which at times might have gotten confused with a petting zoo until the federal government tightened rules for service animals on them. Miniature horses, pigs and other unusual pets found their way onto planes, but an emotional support peacock had not.
Ms. Fraterrigo’s ordeal captured widespread attention from the news media — ABC 7 Eyewitness News in New York was the first to report on it — and members of New York’s congressional delegation lobbied for her to be rebooked with her parrot, including Senator Chuck Schumer.
Jennifer F. de la Cruz, a spokeswoman for Frontier, said in a statement on Wednesday that the airline was working toward a resolution. She did not elaborate on how the parrot had been permitted on Ms. Fraterrigo’s previous flight.
“We are currently investigating the matter and are in contact with the customer and her family to assist her in returning home as soon as she can present all of the government-mandated documentation,” Ms. de la Cruz said. “As a matter of standard policy (as noted on our website) we do not normally transport parrots on our aircraft.”
Since the death of her husband, Richard Fraterrigo, a former New York City police officer and retired federal judicial marshal, who got cancer while working in Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Fraterrigo said that Plucky had provided her comfort.
“My bird is the only one that keeps me going,” she said. “That’s my company.”
Ms. Fraterrigo, who was born in Puerto Rico and had vacationed there with her husband over the years, would not think of traveling without Plucky, her son, Robert Fraterrigo, said.
In December, he began looking into whether his mother could bring Plucky on a flight, he said. While Frontier’s website mentions parrots, macaws, cockatoos, birds of prey as examples of large birds that are prohibited, it says that small household birds may be carried on flights within the United States. In an online chat with a Frontier Airlines customer service agent, Mr. Fraterrigo said, he asked if his mother could bring her bird on a flight and said that she had a doctor’s letter designating it as an emotional support animal.
The agent responded, “okay that’s awesome,” adding that the letter was all she needed to bring to the airport, according to screenshots of the exchange provided by Mr. Fraterrigo, a retired federal agent.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation tightened the rules regarding what types of service animals airlines were required to accommodate. It said that emotional support animals were no longer considered to be the same as service animals, which were limited to dogs. The airlines have their own policies about pets permitted aboard planes.
Plucky is 24 years old. She weighs less than 10 ounces and is about eight inches tall, according to her owner, who bought a bird-carrier backpack so she could place the parrot under the seat in front of her.
“They let her go there with it,” Mr. Fraterrigo said. “Bring her home. She’s on an island.”
Mr. Fraterrigo said that Frontier initially would not budge, refunding the cost of the ticket (about $190) and giving his mother a $250 voucher. He said that his mother was hysterical when she called him from the airport that night.
“The lights were being turned out,” he said. “She was just left there in a wheelchair.”
A few days later, he said, Frontier had appeared to have relented, asking if his mother had a certificate of veterinary inspection for Plucky and documentation to show that the parrot had been purchased in the United States. Mr. Fraterrigo said that the store where his mother had bought the bird was able to dig up the records. She now had a new ticket: seat 3A.
Angelo Roefaro, a spokesman for Senator Schumer, credited ABC7 with bringing Ms. Fraterrigo’s situation to the office’s attention, so it could “help clear the bureaucratic runway at the airline so the constituent could talk to the right folks.”
“We are happy everything worked out,” Mr. Roefaro said.
As she prepared to return to the airport on Wednesday, Ms. Fraterrigo said that she was feeling uneasy. And so was her usually chatty travel companion.
“Plucky talks,” she said, “but Plucky doesn’t talk when she flies because she’s nervous.”
