Horses in airports?

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along come therapy horses in airports.

OK. I’m going to have to break this down into digestible chunks as this story is not palatable on several levels.

The Transportation Security Authority, the organisation responsible for airport security all over the USA, has recently been in the news for terminating a whole lot of people in order to save money. The TSA thought they could persuade travellers to pay for the express PreCheck lane at security screening. This confident belief led to more than 4,000 airport security screeners losing their jobs which is about 10% of the people in this role.

People have not flocked to the PreCheck lanes as expected resulting in waits of up to three hours in some US airports just to clear security. So lots of people lose their jobs and chaos takes over.

And what do humans do when they create a bad situation? Exploit animals, of course!

This BBC article and this Daily Mail article both highlight not only the loss of income for thousands of people but also how one airport is bringing in ‘therapy ponies’ to help keep people calm as they wait hours to clear security.

These unfortunate animals are having their hair coloured and are being paraded through hot and crowded airports so frustrated travellers can touch them as a form of relaxation.

If you would like to explain to this airport that animals do not belong in crowded airports, you can reach them on Twitter.