to think it's nuts to serve nuts on an aeroplane?

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www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2787807/british-airways-denies-request-not-serve-nuts-flight.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

and to hope that someone knows why airlines persist in doing this?

They use epipens, which is a very expensive needle that anyone can inject basically (they inject adrenaline, which costs pennies, but the needles cost about £100).

We've been changed over to Jext pens. Perhaps they're cheaper.

Apparently a jext pen is £23.99 to the NHS, epipen £26.45. So a little cheaper.

I met someone in Indonesia who had been stung by a bee and swollen up alarmingly, using up his only epi-pen. Apparently epipens are unavailable there, so he had no way of replacing it.

He was German, and he said they paid about €100, which seems to be correct

www.medizinfuchs.de/preisvergleich/epipen-junior-autoinjektor-1-st-eurimpharm-arzneimittel-gmbh-pzn-10147075.html
www.dokteronline.com/de/epipen/

Funny the price should be so different, looks like they are only £50 retail here (double the NHS price) onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/uk/allergy/epipen

I think Jexts have a longer shelf life too.

So the issue is that a plane is "as far as you can get" from the 2nd line of treatment - the stuff a hospital would do if the epipen wasn't enough.

Is that right?

Jext pens have a longer shelf life and are more stable in extreme temps, so although they cost pretty much the same, the longer shelf life does make them cheaper in the long run.

Epipens are the final action in a line of defence. Some people feel reassured by having one and maybe take unnecessary risks. They don't always work as the link upthread shows re the poor girl who had a reaction was injected with 3, but still died.

I believe the adrenaline should help open the air ways, which in an anaphylactic reaction, would be closing. We are advised to always carry two. In the event the first one fails or isn't enough. It only buys you time until the emergency service can get to you.

By the way, I second cruising. Brilliant! My Dd is 7 and it's the only time in 7 years that someone else has cooked for her. I would do it again, but it was very expensive, but worth every penny.

If you suffer an anaphylactic reaction on board a plane with only an Epipen and perhaps some antihistamines, you're probably screwed.

Adrenaline is not a magic antidote to anaphylaxis.

People should never take avoidable risks just because they carry adrenaline. They're asking for trouble if this is their approach to their severe allergy.

I think BA has just been permanently deleted from my list of possible airlines we could fly with. Hoping the 12 hour flight to South Africa at Xmas is going to be OK on SAA. I'm normally pretty relaxed about the peanut allergy thing, but this thread has proper given me the jitters.

I am severely allergic to nuts and have experienced severe reactions to peanuts without actually eating them.

I think it's reasonable to expect airlines not to hand out nuts as a free snack but perhaps not realistic to stop all passengers eating their own snacks they've brought on board.

But, for me, one paasenger 20 rows away opening a packet of nuts is, although problematic, probably not going to kill me but the prospect of a whole plane full of passengers opening packets of nuts as they're handed out is deeply worrying and I'm sure (based on previous experiences of having to leave parties where guests have been eating nuts) it would be a life threatening situation.

The point about nut traces left by previous passengers is important though. Just having a ban on the one specific flight doesn't guarentee safety.

When I fly I take wet wipes and wipe down my seat area then wipe my hands thoroughly.

I won't eat anything on a flight because the thought of reacting on a plane is terrifying because of the lack of access to emergency medical care.

I take a scarf and wrap it around my nose and mouth if I smell that a packet of nuts has been opened elsewhere on the plane to reduce the amount of the dust particles I inhale. Anyone in my immediate vicinity who produces a packet of peanuts I speak to as nicely as possible, explain the problem and offer to buy them an alternative snack. Fellow passengers have on all but one occasion been happy to help and even the grumpy one didn't eat the nuts.

Flying is nerve wracking with an allergy but sometimes you just have to get on with it and hope for the best.

Is it mainly British based airlines that serve nuts as the snack.

I'm not a frequent flyer but I have never been offered nuts on a flight.

I've only flown TAM, TAP, Air France, Lufthansa and Air India though.

Snacks have (as far as I can remember) usually been little cheese biscuits or cereal bars.

I think it's crazy to serve nuts on a flight. They're not something I would describe as a staple food for anyone really and, statistically, there are surely going to be nut allergic people on any large passenger plane. Someone upthread said it was a rare occurrence but I find this hard to believe. I work in a school of about 350 children and we have around 8 that are allergic to nuts, 4 of whom have epipens. A full passenger plane should fit hundreds of people on it (I think?) so there should be at least 1 or 2 nut allergies per flight. Or are allergies less common in adults?

They need to tell passengers too though rather than just not serving nuts and plenty of us know airline food is mostly awful processed junk so we take real food like veg and fish and eggs and nuts with us on every journey. In terms of health (for most) a normal whole food nut is much much better for you than the junk carbs in pretzels and crisps and the like.

Green grow if there was an announcement on a flight that there is a severely nut allergic person on board you can survive without your nuts, you wont pass out. Go to any health food shop and there are loads of things other than nuts you can take on board.

Greengrow you take fish and eggs with you on a flight
I would not want be seated next to you!

plenty of us know airline food is mostly awful processed junk so we take real food like veg and fish and eggs and nuts with us on every journey

I feel like 'plenty' is an exaggeration.

Banning penuts from every flight would be daft, why penuts and not any other kind of sever allergy especially as it's probably from contact not air anyway.

However if there is someone severely allergic then it is reasonable to not serve them and ask PAX to not eat their own nuts.

As an adult, you can minimise the risks as delph has described. If you have a child who is still in the fingers is mouth/face touching stage then I think you should weigh up if the reward of going to Florida or whatever is worth the risk.

Peanut allergy while very serious to the individual, is not a huge killer. And whilst the risk to you is great the overall population risk is very small. So having hysterical 'BAN ALL NUTS' as a reaction is out of proportion with the risk.

And before someone chimes in with "but if it saves even just one life then it is woth it" well no, it doesn't work like that. We would save a lot more lives if it was compulsory to be on the organ diner register. We would save a lot more lives by making immunisations compulsory unless medical need not to have one. We would save a lot of lives if all pods and pools were covered over so children couldn't fall in and drown.

BA, Jetstar, Cathay Pacific all serve nuts as in flight snacks. I now no longer fly with them.

I have a severe peanut allergy (yes, anaphylaxis) and while one person opening and eating a pack of nuts wouldn't bother me, an entire cabin opening their nuts at once was enough to give me serious bronchospasm (wheeze secondary to narrowing of the airways). I'd already predosed myself with steroids and antihistamines - I had to use adrenaline (epipen) and salbutamol. Once I'd recovered, the rest of the flight was fine - the opening of bags was staggered enough that the air filtration system sorted it. Or I'd lost all my histamine so couldn't react any more.

Air NZ serve mini packs of vege crisps which are delicious, I tend to stick to them now.

Unfortunately, not flying isn't an option when you live in somewhere remote like NZ and are required to attend conferences every year in Australia, the US or the UK.

I did once get moved to business class when I requested the seat next to me be kept empty if possible (as I didn't want to have to ask whoever sat in it not to eat nuts) - after a concerned question over whether I was allergic to pretzels or salted crisps they moved me to business because they didn't serve peanuts in business.

Not serving nuts as an onboard snack would make a lot of sense. You couldn't stop people bringing their own nuts on (as the daft twunt who's been banned from Ryanair for 2 years shows) but you would stop that initial dust cloud from the first drinks/snack round when everyone opens the bags at once.

This is an interesting thread. BA seem to think that because they don't guarantee a "nut free" flight (because they can't or don't want to stop people bringing nuts on board) it makes no difference if they also serve nuts. This is clearly not the case if it is the quantity of people eating nuts that is the issue. Hopefully if they receive enough bad publicity about their policy regarding nuts they will change it.

Very interesting.

There is much testimony of attacks being brought on by dust and we clearly don't have all the answers yet. Just because the evidence isn't in, doesn't mean those people are wrong. That would be a scientifically nonsensical conclusion.

If the attacks are brought on by contact rather than or as well as by air-borne allergens, that reduces the amount of responsibility a passenger can take for their own welfare (you cannot wipe down the seat touching yours if someone is in it or angrily waiting to get in it).

I still think on balance that it is nuts to serve nuts. If for no other reason, it will result in frightened passengers, which must in itself be dangerous. So where do you stop? You stop at a sensible compromise point.

I think you act to cause least harm. Not serving nuts will cause harm to nobody, while serving nuts will potentially cause harm to those few of us who are severely allergic. Therefore not serving nuts causes least harm.

Egg and dairy as far as I know are less likely to be airborne and require contact or ingestion, so easier to avoid. I'd suggest that serving cheesy crisps with airborne dairy allergens is also potentially a concern - when there are safer alternatives why wouldn't you go for those instead?

Whois, we did decide to stay on the flight to Florida as we had saved for a long time and booked after taking lots of advice and being completely open with the ba booking people.

At the point of hoarding, being told that it was up to me was a shitty thing to do.

I believe that people want to do what's right. People like you and your attitude is really depressing. Know one is asking for water to be banned on flights. It's nuts. Using peoples rights to eat what they want is fine, but in a confined space, why is it so awful to ask people to nit eat something.

There is nothing easy about my life. I have depression as a result of the high levels of anxiety that having a child with serious allergies. We don't eat out as a family. Cannot go anywhere without brining out own food. My dc have neverl eaten out anywhere apart from once in Florida at disney world and on a cruise. These are the two holidays we have had, which I realise is more than some people, but when you get as cooped up by allergies as we are, we needed to do something. That was why we went to Florida, people said disney were excellent at catering for allergies. At that time the thought of an actual holiday for me was like the holy grail.

The point is nuts don't need to be served on a flight. Yes there are allergies to other foods, but normal hygiene for those is usually enough. But, like I said upthread, nuts are sticky. Not like glue, but in the sense that once they are in the environment, even the actual nut is removed, the traces of protein remain.

Despite reading this, you still judge me for going to Florida. Someone else up thread moaned that their kids couldn't take a peanut butter sandwich to
School. Seriously???

Part of my depression was brought on due it anxiety because I encounter people like you everyday and I am always amazed at how lacking humans can be in compassion or sympathy or empathy.

Allergies are on the increase. No one knows why, every year I take my dd to be tested, hoping and praying that something has changed, it hasn't so far and she had her first anaphylactic reaction when I first started weaning. Every year she has needles poked into her arms, both, every year she cries and gets angry at the unfaisprness of it all. And everyday we avoid avoid avoid situations, just so we don't put people like you out.

Thanks for your understanding.

Apologies for types.

no one, obviously.

Also, we had boarded early. Wiped down the seats. Got settled in and it was when the head stewardess came to talk to us after the rest of the flight had boarded that we were told it was up to us.

Oh gfs! Typos!

Yes, act to cause the least harm.

Sorry to hear about your experiences Newbie. I can understand that creating anxiety. I feel depressed just reading some of the posts....

Indeed. i am only the thread to ask. I eat well and don't get ill and part of that includes taking food which is good for you on flights all over the place. Hoswever I don't want to poisont hose around you.

I don't see why someone should comment though that I am somehow wrong to bring good food with me rather than eating airline food. My piece of salmon or my eggs is not going to do those around me any more harm than the airline's hot meal once it is opened. I don't think I am any more anti social than others on planes, probably less. I could say I don't want junk sugar and chocolate or alcohol served because those foods disgust me but I don't... and by the way probably some of my 5 children will be next to me stuffing themselves with awful chocolate bought from the airline's push along cart....

Although we will all remember the incident when the youngest vomited on arrival at heathrow (he got car sick) because I opened my eggs and bacon container before we went through passport control and he hated the smell.... (that was after some terrorism scare which said the food could not go through security so I had to eat it before hand).