Nut allergy on plane

[HomeCookingWannabe]

I've been on a plane today. At the airport I bought Pret's choc almond cookie as a treat. We get on the plane and they say don't eat anything with nuts in as someone severely allergic.

So I didn't, because i'm not a dk and I want to keep someone alive.

But if said allergy person is worried about airborne transmission, surely the cookie sitting there for the 4 hour flight is worse than if i'd eaten it and it was in my tummy? It doesn't seem to make sense to me.

AIBU in thinking it's a load of nonsense?

@iolaus Yes, this! I paid £3.50 for a fresh warm cookie from Pret as a treat. As I say, 100% get the importance of not eating it, but I was miffed not to have been told earlier.

Anyway, this thread has been useful, thanks all

Been on a flight last year where the staff refused to sell nuts due to someone on the flight with an allergy, depends on the risk of transmission (and who is best to assess it? you?) and the need to do a forced landing to get medical help and all the time and cost involved in that . Do you and your cookie want to be responsible?

@ruffler45 Think you've misunderstood the post. My question was not whether my needs are greater than theirs, it was whether leaving the product still on the flight and open to the air was safer than eating it. Others have kindly already answered that.

This is very considerate and over and above what most people would do.

I know from previous flights not to buy anything with nuts for a plane journey as some else mentioned, this is so common now.

Hope you managed to get a treat on the flight (although extortionately priced)!

@ThriveIn2025 I didn't knowingly buy a nut item, I only saw the "double chocolate" lol, it was only when the announcement came on i thought that I'd vaguely seen "& almond" on the sign. But you're right, it's given me pause for thought next time

Thanks for not eating!

I have a nut allergy child, and when we fly people are asked not to consume nuts. When they asked on our flight the first thing the woman opposite did was open her nut bar. Arsehole. Lucking not the ones my kid is allergic to but some people are selfish arseholes. His allergy isn’t airborne, but on the off chance someone eats nuts, gets it in their hands, goes to the loo, touches other seats, which leaves tiny nut particles on the surface of something which he then touches, touches his face or mouth, and then has an allergic reaction - well then that plane will be making an emergency landing and hopefully he won’t die as a result because
EpiPens only buy enough time to get to a hospital.

Asking people not to eat nuts on the plane is the best precaution against this. It’s not a big ask - Please don’t eat nuts for the few hours where everyone is trapped in a tiny sealed tube with no ambulance service. And yes this can happen in every day life, however unlucky he would be for this to happen, but the risk on an aeroplane is higher due to it being a tiny tube where it’s hard to move about without touching everything.

And yes I get that people are allergic to cheese, fish, spam, etc (I’m allergic to tomatoes) but that’s not a reason for people to keep eating nuts on flights when they’ve been asked not to because of a passenger with a potentially fatal allergy.

If I had a severe allergy, I would never trust the general public on this. It isn’t malicious, it’s just that people forget that certain things have nuts in them. Almond croissants and chocolate hazelnut products are always around at my ‘nut free’ work place.

I did think nuts were banned from aeroplanes and schools entirely. Is that not the case?

No. And I took two flights this week where nuts were given out as snacks.

Mangoes are botanically related to cashews. I read they can trigger a reaction in people with cashew sensitivity.

I was on a flight last year where they announced someone on the flight had a nut allergy but this was announced while people were still taking their seats and putting away hand and everything was a bit noisy. I remember thinking there’s no way everyone heard that but I was so glad I did as my children had Nutella snacks with them. I couldn’t stop thinking that the announcement should have been made a lot more loudly and clear as I am certain there would have been a lot of people that were focussed on other things that wouldn’t have heard the muffled announcement.

So are pistachio and pink peppercorn. Also cross reactive with cashew, but not as often as pistachio which is from the same family: hazelnut, Brazil nut and almond. My child is fine with mangoes but allergic to pistachio. He can eat other nuts and we have to make sure he eats them regularly to prevent allergies forming

At least you took responsibility. I was on a flight once and people were asked not to ear nuts. The couple in front of us complained and asked where the person with the nut allergy was. They were told quite close. They had planned to eat a giant toblerone between them on the flight home. They really didn’t need it.

One of my DC is highly allergic to multiple foods (not nuts funnily enough). The reaction is speedy and dramatic. It's not really possible to control an environment to the extent he needs.

Do planes carry epipens in their first aid?

@User746353

Could the allergen rule in airplanes be more about legal liability? Maybe different laws apply to accidental death or injury on planes and the airlines just need to cover their asses.

AFAIK there isn’t an “allergen rule”, airlines tend to have their own individual policies which often make the point that they can’t guarantee a nut free cabin environment for all sorts of reasons from chances of cross contamination at catering facilities right through to the chances of surface contamination due previous occupants.

Also if you listen carefully to the cabin crew announcement at many airlines (if one is made) it is often only a strong suggestion to other passengers that they shouldn’t eat nut products and make passengers aware there is somebody with a food allergen on board, it’s often not an announcement of a total ban.

Thanks to both of you for this info. I’ve reintroduced pistachio and cashew so thankfully no problem there - just mangoes.

Yes. I have found used tissues and empty snack wrappers around my plane seat. Sanitation appears to be unimportant for some airlines.

This is actually the best explanation I've seen of the reason and now makes sense to me. If we eat the nut product and then touch the toilet door and transfer particles and the allergic person then touches it, they can get the particles from that.
Thank you genuinely for explaining ! I get why they say it now

They really need to tell people at check in (maybe an alert on the app?). Telling people on the plane is too late. Many will have already bought snacks or meals to eat on the plane and lots will still eat these anyway as no good or cheap food options on many flights, and some won’t hear or properly register the announcement as lots of other noises and things going on around them (this would be me as I have AuDHD) so won’t even realise.

Also if you are not impacted by nuts, you may be unaware that a product even contains nuts as your health doesn't require ingredients to be checked,

Absolutely. I guess it’s a result of cheaper flights. But public buses are cleaner now.

I’ve never been in business or first so perhaps it is cleaner up the front of the plane.

We are also often allowed to board first if I ask so I can wipe down our seats and tables.

I just eat the nuts.

Yes this too, if there’s no need most people don’t read the ingredients list and wouldn’t think to.

I travelled in business last week.

i lost my hearing aid in the chair and they took they whole thing apart.

they found someone else’s glasses, several spoons and a lot of sweetie wrappers and tissues.

not my hearing unfortunately

they are only surface clean

"Is contact through touch or smell a risk?
People with peanut and allergy often worry that touching or smelling nuts could cause a serious reaction, but research suggests this is not common.

One small study showed that when 30 children with serious peanut allergy had contact with peanut butter through touch or smell, none of them experienced anaphylaxis and none reacted to smell. A third had a mild reaction to touch including redness, itching or rash in a small area, but these were not serious, and no medication was needed. The researchers concluded that at least nine out of ten children with similar allergies would not have a serious reaction to touch or smell, but the study only looked at peanut butter, not other forms of peanut.

In another study, 84 children were positioned half a meter away from a bowl of peanuts for half an hour and none of them had a moderate or serious reaction. The researchers also collected peanut proteins from the air and the amounts of peanut protein were so small they were very unlikely to be able to cause moderate or serious allergic reactions. These studies only looked at peanuts, but there is no reason to think that tree nuts would be any different."