Travelling long haul with DC who has nut allergy

[BlackeyedPetitsPois]

After some advice please if anyone has any experience. Thank you.

We are flying long haul (9+ hrs) with British Airways soon. DC (8yrs) has a tree nut allergy which requires them to carry EpiPens.
(I have a signed GP letter to take with us to allow us on the plane with the EpiPens.)

Does anyone know if we would be allowed to board early to wipe down the surfaces of our seats, tray tables etc?

We are taking our own food for DC so any suggestions for long flight other than sandwiches? Could we take pot noodle/pasta style meals which just need hot water?

Any other advice would be very welcome!

Maybe she was quite rightly working iaw with her employer’s procedures, rules and policies.

For example this from Virgin Atlantic’s allergy policy..many other airline’s have similar in their rules/T&Cs.

“We also can’t stop other passengers from bringing (or eating) their own food onboard, which may include nuts.”

Do you have a child with an allergy, and if so do you feel comfortable restricting their lives to that degree?

It's perfectly possible to travel with severe allergies.

As I'm guessing OP already knows based her post, the risk from other passengers eating nuts is that they then touch the seat, tray table, loo door handle etc, that her DD then touches, hence wanting to clean them down. The risk of the a passenger in their seat on the previous flight having a Nutella sandwich is probably much bigger than someone a few rows away eating nuts on their own flight.

I think OP was looking for experience of travelling with BA and easy meal ideas rather than hyperbole about airborne reactions or advice that her DD should never get on a plane.

There was a story in the news the other week about a guy from love island who repeatedly told the crew he had had a nut allergy and was given a curry with cashew nuts in it.

The crew can ask people to not eat nuts but let's face it a percentage of the population are ducks and would just ignore it.

DICKS!!

If my child might die because of those sandwiches, Then I would forcibly take the sandwiches off them, flush them and punch anyone that tried to stop me.

It is the same as someone waving a knife at your child or an adult with a severe allergy So people need to understand the dangers of what they are doing and the laws updated.

Covering yourself in peanut butter in the process and therefore massively increasing the risk to your DC.

Btw, did you ever let your DC have an ice-cream in the playground?

True, good point…!
Would have to evacuate my dc further up before the fisticuffs.

Why, because of dairy sufferers?

In any case a plane is a separate issue, you cannot access emergency services and the air is recycled. You cannot just leave the environment.

Yes. Milk is now the leading cause of anaphylaxis in children. Smearing ice-cream all over the playground is arguably riskier than eating nuts on a plane.

(And yes I have a child who carries epipens due to a peanut allergy.)

It is the airborne element of an allergy on a plane, either as dust or cooking steam.

Agree re a severe dairy allergy and other children. I personally would not give my child an ice cream if I was asked not to or told anyone had a severe allergy. A life is more important.

Again it is the enclosed environment of a plane that is pretty unique.

My DD is allergic to peanuts. We have flown long haul lots of times and flown all over Europe. Different airlines deal with allergies differently. EasyJet will usually make an announcement. I think Ryanair did as well. I was not impressed with South African Airways when all passengers were given a bag of nuts as a snack as we were flying over the Kalahari Desert. That was a nerve-wracking flight, although DD was actually completely fine. I would be very wary of travelling on some Asian airlines where peanuts are more central to the national diet.

I have a severe allergy myself and I'm super cautious because people on planes even when told not to eat nuts don't always listen and eat them anyway. Cabin crew won't hand them which is great and ask people not to eat them but if someone has a chocolate bar with nuts in not much cabin crew can do, especially if they don't see a person open and eat it. I travel but tend to go by ship as I think safer.

Family was removed from flight for asking for passengers not to eat nuts

www.businessinsider.com/family-kicked-off-flight-over-daughter-peanut-allergy-dispute-2024-5?amp

Unless someone's grinding nuts, the recirculated air isn't an issue, it's contact points that are the risk. (For nuts, different for say milk or eggs.)

Agree about access to medical services, we're very strict about DD only eating familiar foods when flying even though usually there's very little she can't have. But someone opening a snickers across the aisle wouldn't be a big deal, we'd just up the hygiene.

Given OP's post, she knows all this though!

They were kicked off for being aggressive including trying to get in the cockpit.

What could she have done? Probably better eaten rather than left lying around.

@RedHelenB nothing and I don't blame her but I'm just making OP aware that some people don't GAF about her kid.

I’d be bringing as many epipens as I could because people these days are just plain old weird.

there was a case where a man insisted on eating peanuts on a flight and a girl almost died and would have without 2 x epipen injections

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10893187/Call-airline-peanut-ban-girl-14-collapses-mid-flight.html

I am crew for a European airline and only today I had to make an announcement about a passenger's severe nut allergy.
Everyone on board was incredibly caring and mindful and no one questioned it. It was however a shorthaul flight.

I worked for BA for many years, and whilst we would always make an announcement it is very hard to keep an eye on it.

Passengers forget and crew also forget and nuts can indeed be served by accident.

We are always mindful but you do have to realise that passengers and crew are human and people do forget.

You won't be able to have a totally nut free environment I'm afraid

Would taking disposable gloves for toilet trips work? (Apologies here, no experience of contact allergies like that)

We flew with Ba to the Caribbean earlier this year, with my teenage son who is allergic to nuts. Ground crew were extremely helpful. Spoke to the crew on the gate - they reprinted his boarding pass with a nut allergy warning on it, and then allowed us to pre-board in order to wipe down the seat, tray etc.
We told the crew onboard and they made several announcements about it, asking passengers to refrain from eating nuts. However, we were told that they'd still be served as snacks further up the plane (we were in economy).
The meals can have nuts in them. We took our own food for him anyway, but I was given the allergy information by the crew so that I could see what people around him would be served. The food economy was apparently clear but there was a cashew meal being served in Business class.
My son had a big cooked breakfast in the terminal and we took lots of safe snacks and a pre-bought sandwich for the flight. The meal was pretty unappetising anyway so he didn't miss much 😂
I racked my brain beforehand for food to take with, but actually half the snacks went uneaten as he was glued to the in-flight movies!

Hi OP I have a nut allergy and travel frequently

BA/ryanair/easyjet are very used to this and will make an announcement and avoid serving nuts as a snack. You can board early too, I haven’t been asked for a medical certificate before. I usually try to tell them at the gate but get redirected to mention it as I’m boarding.

what I have found containing is to have some antihistamine tablets when the plane takes off and I wear a mask (think covid mask) during the flight - I know they done really do anything but I begin to panic if I do smell nuts and these are my safety behaviours- the mask in particular prevents me from smelling it (and through my logic means I’m not inhaling particles). There’s actually also research into this that showed it’s extremely unlikely you’d have an airborne reaction to nuts on a plane, even for the most allergic people and that wiping seats down is the most effective thing to do.

Emirates I have personally found to be abhorrent, flat out refusing to even acknowledge it and will not fly again with them now.

They'd make an emergency landing at the nearest airport and the police would be waiting for you if you punched someone on a plane.