OWENSBORO, Ky. (WFIE) – A woman in Owensboro with a service dog is asking for airlines to have more synergy when it comes to traveling with service animals. She was denied service on a flight to Chicago by Contour Airlines after a mix-up with her documentation.

Kimberly Henderson-Clemens is deaf in both ears with cochlear implants, and she has multiple sclerosis. Her dog Murphy helps her with that.

“I don’t know that I could live alone if it wasn’t for Murphy,” she explained.

She told 14 News on Monday that she travels with Murphy a lot.

“He’s chill,” she said. “We get on planes, people don’t even know he’s there unless they’ve seen us get on.”

Kimberly said she has to provide documentation ahead of time for Murphy, and this month she did just that for a flight with Contour Airlines that connected with American Airlines in Chicago.

When she arrived for the first flight, there was a problem.

“[The airline employee] said, ‘Well, we remember you were here, but for some reason, it didn’t get attached to the reservation,’” she said.

Somewhere along the line, the documentation was lost. Henderson-Clemens said she didn’t have time to go get her documents because the flight was leaving soon, so she had to miss the flight with no refund.

She said she felt it could have been resolved if Contour was able to verify her service animal with American Airlines. She was connecting flights between the two, and she said American had no trouble with her documentation.

She said American helped waive certain fees to get her out of town on time by departing from Evansville, but she said she felt it all could have been avoided.

Kimberly said she understands the rules requiring documentation very well because she’ll encounter fake service dogs.

“I can’t tell you how many times Murphy and I have traveled and a dog with a service dog will bark at him or lunge at him,” she said. She explained that service dogs are trained extremely well and never behave that way.

She said irresponsibility on the part of passengers has forced airlines’ hands to be more discerning, but they haven’t all responded with the same policies.

“There’s got to be consistency in it,” she said. “It’s got to be fair.”

She said she works through a group called the American Service Dog Access Coalition, which is a nonprofit that verifies a service dog’s status and helps communicate with airlines to get them on flights.

Henderson-Clemens said that she had an ID card with them that some airlines use to quickly verify Murphy’s registration. She said that it would be a lot easier if there were a centralized system like that to make sure every airline could be on the same page.

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