Aibu to expect an airline to offer allergy friendly food for my almost 2 year old son?

[danishkids]

We will be traveling with Qatar airlines in July. We will be traveling with your 22 month old son who has allergies. To milk egg and almonds. He carries an epi-pen for the milk allergy.

We have been informed that they can only offer baby glass jar food for our son and some apples and bananas. The glass jars he can have (due to his allergies) are age 6-9 months.

He eats the same food as us. We have ask for a child’s meal instead, I have even offered to pay for it. The reply I get is that I should take my own food. However with no microwave or fridge. With 3 flights over 26 hours.

Baby fruit will not sustain him for that long.
I feel Like they are being unreasonable.

FYI you can order allergy meals for adults.

OP have you tried logging in to My Booking and selecting an allergy meal for yourself using the drop down menu? You wouldn’t need a doctors note for that.

Just bring food with you. It's not going to be the end of the world if your child has to heat "cold" food for one or two days. Jam sandwiches, chips, pasta salad...etc. I would NOT trust any airline with my child's allergen free requirements. You should also bring extra food with you unless Auckland is your only destination. It's very difficult to ensure allergen free food in other countries.

But still, with an epipen allergy, I wouldn’t risk it.

I did a lot of necessary long haul with mine, from 6 weeks old onwards. They didn't have allergies but in any case I always took food I knew they'd eat, in case airline food was unsuitable or they were hungry before meals were served. IIRC Marmite sandwiches featured heavily!

TBH having worked as cabin crew myself, I never relied on any airline to provide anything I could be 100% sure they'd eat, at least not when they were very little.

My kids both have allergies and I strongly recommend that you don’t rely on the airline providing an allergy friendly meal. They may have made a mistake in the ingredients and it’s not suitable, it might not turn up in their delivery, they might give it away to someone else as happens frequently with vegetarian order.

Take your own food. I know it’s a hassle but better than your DC having nothing available that is safe for them to eat.

We always take tons of food in case we get stuck in the airport or when we arrive at our destination we can find nothing suitable for them to eat.

I see you can’t get an allergy meal without a doctors note. Either hound quatar airlines on social media as they've gone back on their word or see if you can get a gp letter for you. Under the circumstance the gp may be able to word a letter so without lying. It will cost you. I last paid £25 about 3 years ago for my dd.

We went on a long haul holiday with Thompson. Requested a vegetarian meal for my DSister. On the flight they didnt provide it as "its not a definite thing, its just a request". . After I asked to speak to their manager (we had paid 3k per person so i wasnt too happy. would have happily paid if they had told us it wasnt a definite thing! and did offer to pay for it once again on the flight but was told one wasnt loaded for us as "it was just a request") the air hostess got huffy and told us that she would give HER vegetarian meal to DSis and she would eat the chicken as she wasnt vegetarian anyway. . Airlines are batshit.

OP, pretty certain it would just be a jar even if allergies weren't an issue. They don't provide kids meals for infants at all I don't think and just won't have the system to provide one. You need to pack food. With EpiPen level allergies I wouldn't trust Doha airport either as those are very restrictive allergies but I'm travelling through HIA on Thursday so if you let me know the type of things he would normally eat I can ask.

Pretty certain they warm up milk for kids so presumably they could warm up a pouch of toddler friendly food if you could bring one. You need to get that through security in the UK though.

That said, from about 15 months I always paid for a child's seat for anything more than shorthaul How are you going to do 26 hours with him on your lap?! That's a bigger deal than having to take preprepared food in my view!

I follow a plant based diet and always take my food when we travel Sydney-Europe, twice a year. I tried once the vegan meal . BEURCK and we always travel BA. I take salads with me and DS2 started doing the same.
From door to door, it is 28 hours, and my food is just fine. If we have time and options during the midway stop, I buy something fresh and cold, otherwise I keep what I have.
And cross contamination at the processing plant or on board is more than possible. They heat the meals in the same oven, special meals are stocked together.

Would they be able to defrost and heat a meal you provide? A risotto, pasta? Otherwise, arancini travel very well if he likes them and I am sure someone can give you ideas of meals that don't go rotten in 24 hours.
Many airlines are the snack box in-between service so you can stock biscuits, crackers and so on

take a packed lunch and when you have stop overs buy him some proper food from a cafe or something.

plus 26 hours just on your lap? good luck with that and I pity anyone sitting near you.

I remember being surprised when first flew with under two that no food at all was provided. But then thought about it and realised that the plane carries physically enough trays for the seats and therefore couldn’t fit an extra one on

OP, if I understand correctly, you have not bought a ticket for your child. If that is correct, the airline are not under any obligation to provide a meal for him.

There was good advice upthread: order an adult allergy meal and pack lots of food for yourself.

Correction: I have just re-read and saw that you cannot order an adult allergy meal. Your best bet is to pack enough food for the flight.

And, no. I don't think the airline is being unreasonable.

Another mum of an allergy baby here.
Allergic to eggs, soya, nuts, mangoes and anaphylactic to milk (carries an epi pen). I don’t trust anyone else to provide food for him. I would definitely be packing our own food rather than risk cross-contamination and anaphylaxis in the air

because I asked when I got on the plane did they have food for my daughter and the air hostess at the time said yes, they had bananas and apples.

But my point still stands- if you didn't ask until you got on the plane, your stuck with whatever they actually have,

Thanks for your replies :)

I think we will make a packed lunch, but I will complain to the company for saying that they would provide a meal, then going back on their word.

As for the comments about having my son on my lap. How it’s a shame for people around me.

I really don’t see a problem. When the seat belt signs are turned off he can sit next to his brother and sister, age 3 and 5 and watch cartoons, play games or switch between my husband and I. He is a very well behaved boy.

We will also have different toys with us and a blanket for him to cuddle up. I have no worries. He sleeps in the night so shouldn’t be annoying

If he is a little loud during the day that can be expected babies make noise. Although I will of course try to play and distract him so he is not an inconvenience to others.

For people here that don’t have a kids with an allergy it’s not as straight forward as you think. And reading the comments I can’t jut buy food when we land in Doha they don’t take allergies seriously.

But it will be a packed lunch and then we won’t fly with Qatar again.

Thanks for all the old suggestions

If you have any good suggestions of food that will not spoil let me know :D

Oh if you haven’t paid for a seat then yes you are being very unreasonable to expect a meal to be pravoided

As I have previously said ... I would have had no problem paying for a meal

I always carry peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and/or nutella sandwiches. Or Salami (don't forget it's a dried meat that's designed to be unrefrigerated). Bring extra nappies!!! and a change of clothes.

All I can think for meat is things like beef jerky, raw ham such as Parma ham, pepperami sausages as long as they don’t trigger allergies. But they’re perhaps a bit grown up for a 22 month old. You’d have to check if there aren’t restrictions on importing them to your destination. You can also buy self heating meals for camping idk if you can finds ones, which are suitable or allowed on the plane.

OP, I'm not pittying the people next to you, just you (assuming you're not going to complain about the person in front reclining their seat as I have seen happen). You're just braver than me! As a warning the arm rests do not go all the way up in all planes so fitting three kids into two seats might not work but I think they do in most longhaul flights now.

I really don't think you'll find this any different on another airline but as he's 22 months this is the last time it will matter.

It’s space. Planes are designed very sparsely so there simply isn’t room in the galley for another tray meal

Peanut butter!

At 22 months my DD was an absolute pain in the arse on a 2.5 hour flight to Spain! She wasn’t badly behaved, she just got so restless and she’s far too big to sit on a knee for that long.

We take that Mathieson’s smoked sausage as it doesn’t need to be refrigerated. Also things like olives, breadsticks, crackers, crisps and biscuits.

I also take pot noodle type noodles that you can just add hot water to.