Would you eat a packet of nuts on a plane?

To all of the people who don't care about strangers with nut allergies...

...aren't you worried that if you send one of us into anaphylactic shock that your flight be diverted to get us to the nearest hospital, and it will screw up your travel plans?

If you won't think of us, perhaps you could think of yourselves?

That’s true, but I’m sure in that instance the crew would make an announcement to avoid dairy. Hopefully passengers would respect that keeping someone alive is more important than the mild inconvenience of having to forego a favourite snack for a few hours.

DS (autistic) can be quite fussy with food so we often make his safe food (peanut butter sandwich) for a flight, especially if we’re long haul. However, I’ve always asked the crew before taking it out of our bag to make sure it’s ok to eat if they’ve not done an announcement. The one time they have announced it, it stayed in a Tupperware in our bag and DS just ate crisps and sweets for the flight

No, but they may touch cheese with their fingers?

If someone has a severe life threatening allergy, they inform the flight crew - cue announcement on board asking fellow passengers to not consume nuts.
But if no such announcement is made, then it's fair play. Eat what you like. Your choice. Some choose very smelly stuff!... and for someone sensitive to smells, or pregnant - it's horrible! But no one says 'ooh, how selfish'!
Nuts are nutritious human food. And until they're proven to be and banned as a toxic substance, I don't think we should see them removed from consumption by the majority. I'd much rather see that done to sugar! The bloody stuff is in everything.

Has anyone said they’d continue to eat them even when asked not to? I’ve seen lots of people replying to say they would eat them UNLESS asked not to?

People don’t dip their fingers in tea and spread it all over the plane.

Would you have milk in your tea on an aeroplane? Or is it just the nut allergy people you are vigilant about?

Just because you can’t see any reason why you would do something doesn’t mean that other people are obligated to avoid it. I travel with my kids quite a bit and I always carry a bag of nuts. How many other tasty, filling, nutritious, widely available snacks are a good source of protein, can be (relatively) inexpensively packed from home, and do not leak, make a mess, need refrigeration, or have a strong odor? None that my fussy eaters will touch! Of course if we are told that someone on board has a severe allergy we wouldn’t eat them but barring that I see no reason to avoid nuts or ask permission to eat them.

If it helps, OP, I did a google search and found exactly zero credible reports of any in-flight fatalities or serious injuries attributable to someone in a neighboring seat eating nuts. Considering that a nuts are sold in most if not all major airports, served on board by many airlines, and carried on by countless passengers every day, I think you can probably relax on this one.

If no announcements were made, yes.

My son has life threatening allergies to milk, nuts, sesame, and kiwi.

Milk is actually the most common cause of anaphylactic deaths in the under 18s.

On his first flight they made the "no nuts" announcement and the lady beside us was drinking a hot latte (steaming dairy milk) and eating hummus (sesame galore).

I don't even bother asking them to say anything about his nut allergy anymore. We wipe surfaces down and bring our own food.

The whole "airborne" allergy thing is a myth, unless the food is heated.

Edited: posted in wrong thread!

What absolute shits. Nobody is asking them to never eat nuts again, just for a flight. WTF is wrong with people?

I see nothing wrong with eating nuts on a plane.

Given that peanut/tree nut allergies affect 2-3% of the population now, the chances are that there will always be someone with an allergy on every flight. Statistically there would be between 9 and 14 nut allergic passengers on a full 747.

Well you say obviously! There was an almighty tow on a flight I was on recently from Madeira to UK. Pilot informed us that there was a child on board with a serious nut allergy. Then a couple opposite us shrugged and opened snickers bars! They were nearly lynched but kept exclaiming "it's not our problem".
There are some hideous people about.

Eating nuts “in public” is very different to eating them on an aeroplane, which is an enclosed space where you can’t just rush to the nearest hospital if someone nearby suffers a severe reaction.

I have been served packets of peanuts on Air Malaysia (BC) this year during a few internal flights in Malaysia. I flew out with another airline. I don’t think it is a good idea. I was once on a flight from the UK and there was an announcement that someone had a nut allergy and nuts were not to be opened/consumed on the flight. Two very selfish people, in front of me, asked the stewardess where the people were as they planned to eat a large toblerone between them. The stewardess said the person was very close and the two people were not happy.

Neither I nor a loved one have a nut allergy but its common knowledge that they are not particularly uncommon and can be severe. For the duration of a flight I am, therefore, be quite capable of avoiding nuts. Why not? Have a bag of crisps instead FFS.

Indeed, if I was asked not to for the benefit of other passengers then of course I wouldn't eat nuts on a flight. However this thread does raise two questions in my mind -

1. If this is such a common and significant risk then why do so many airlines serve nuts? Having to divert because of a medical emergency or even god forbid having a passenger die is (and I don't mean this flippantly), bad for business. If it's as common a risk as is being made out it would happen a lot and airlines would realise the folly of serving nuts...but they seem perfectly happy to dish them up.

1. If somebody else eating nuts on a flight is a matter of life and death, then unless getting the flight is also a matter of life and death, why are you taking that risk? Yes you can get an announcement put out and hope everybody stringently follows it and that nobody inadvertently (or even, if they're an arsehole, deliberately), eats something with traces of nuts, but it seems a mad risk to take.

Eat nuts on a plane? Yup
There isn’t a widely understood rule or expectation that one refrain from nut consumption. Don’t be making things up now
I totally understand the severity,speed,impact of allergies and if asked to refrain I would
However,i don’t routinely refrain from nuts on plane or train

It's a bit silly to expect people not to eat nuts on a plane 'in case' of an allergy - in fact if an announcement hasn't been made, you can be confident there isn't an allergy (much more so than on a train, for example). I'd be happy to refrain from whatever was needed (including dairy) if the person next to me had allergies, but it seems mad to assume they secretly have them.

That said, having read the comment above that Emirates don't make announcements like other airlines do, I would ask the person next to me if they had a nut allergy and if so, be careful about what I ordered.

There are definitely regularly animals on flights. If they can fit in a specific sized under seat bag they can travel. Have been on multiple flights with animals within a few rows of me - I know as it triggers my asthma. On one horrible flight there was one next to me and I wasn’t able to move seats as it was a full flight.

My mind went a bit old school Carry On films stupid for a minute there.

@BusWankersyour behaviour would absolutely kill my child sitting on that plane .,,, why would you choose to do that exactly please ?

Why?

what a nasty, inconsiderate thing to do!!