Travelling with nut allergy sufferer

LB1985

During the last year, my 15 year old brother has been diagnosed with a severe nut allergy. Although he has never suffered anaphylactic shock, he must avoid foods containing nuts, and carries two Epipens at all times.

I just wondered whether anybody else on the board here suffers from a nut allergy and can report on experiences in terms of travelling. For instance, I have read on BA's website that they cannot provide meals guaranteed to be nut free (not necessarily a problem on short flights), and presumably travel insurance can be a problem too? Obviously, although this is a severe issue, it is not one that we want to prevent having good holidays, etc.

soolin

The only thing I can advise you on is that no airline will 100% guarantee their food free from anything..they all say contamination is possible. Also, even requesting a special diet food does not guarantee that food will be available when you board, I once did a 10 hour flight merely on a box of raisins when my meal was not available (I'm not a nut allergy sufferer though)

All you can do is call the individual airlines and see whether any of them keep completely nut free menus, I recall seeing an advertising blurb from one airline that mentioned tht none of their meals were made in a factory that handled nuts at all, so all meals were nut free regardless. I can't remember though where I saw it and what airline it was (useful I know!!, Du'h) it might even have been on one of those airport type programmes on the TV.

Strangled

My 15 year old also has a nut allergy. Travel insurance was an extra £3 for the year for him. They'll ask you how long it has been since his last hospitalisation. The Airline, we're going to Florida with Travelcity Direct, they were really good, have logged it on their system,have booked a nut-free meal and told us to get a doctors note saying he must have his epipens with him during the flight or he will not get them thro customs and possibly the country being travelled to.
Don't worry about it, airlines are very clued up about it and apparently thats the one reason why you don't get a free bag of nuts as a snack.
We got our travel insurance with Columbus direct, £55 for a year for my self,wife and son inc travel to the USA.

vivatifosi

I have a food allergy but not to nuts. Virgin Atlantic were very good on the issue, BA less so.

mystic_trev

Three years ago I was on a Monarch flight to Luxor. One of the passengers who had a nut allergy sfffered an anaphylactic shock by just smelling them in the cabin. We had to make an emergency landing in Venice and as we landed with too much fuel on board had to wait while they got an engineer to check out the landing gear hadn't been damaged. No 757 engineer available in Venice so Monarch had to fly out an empty Airbus from Luton with one of their engineers. Our total delay was nearly 8 hours and you can imagine what the other passengers thought. Goodness knows how much the incident cost Monarch.

Strangled

Thats right Trev, with the air being circulated, something from the nuts circulates and causes this.
We found out about my son when we were out xmas shopping. He picked up a bag brazil nuts for me (still in the shells) and put them in the shopping trolley. He ended up in hospital, head like a football unable to breathe, he was about 2 years old.
Shopping was a nightmare, Marks and Spencers and warnings on everything they sell.

Ponkle22

Be warned that recently at an airport my children very nearly bought an item from the vending machine (in the departures lounge) that had nuts in it (chocolate). When we had been on board for 20 mins an announcement went out about a passenger with a nut allergy on board.

This was at Pisa airport but really could be anywhere I guess.

Hope this helps.

System

On board a Thomas Cook flight this month there was an announcement made that there was a passenger on board with a nut allergy, therefore they would not be serving nuts or selling Snickers bars on board (as advertised in their brochures snack pages).

Hope this helps anyone who's travelling and is worried.

spiro

Summer01 wrote: »

On board a Thomas Cook flight this month there was an announcement made that there was a passenger on board with a nut allergy, therefore they would not be serving nuts or selling Snickers bars on board (as advertised in their brochures snack pages).

Hope this helps anyone who's travelling and is worried.

I thought Snickers contained peanuts which are not nuts.

GlasweJen

I'm a nut allergy sufferer. OP, be reassured that all of the big airlines will refuse to sell nut items if someone on the plane has the allergy because it costs too much to re-route the plane should anything go wrong.

Also they will usually ask passengers to not open any nut containing products when they have boarded the plane and enforce this strictly, again it's a cost thing.

Make sure you have a doctors letter or they wont allow the epipens on board and also ask for a copy of his epipen prescription in case they get used/lost/stolen while abroad as this will make it easier for a foreign doctor to prescripe replacements (will help with the dose and also be more authentic so they'll be more inclinded to get them for you).

allthe2s

Food allergy whilst travelling is a real problem that I don't think the airline industry has yet fully reacted to.

I have a close family memeber with an egg allergy and we find it infuriating that whilst airlines provide different meals for peoples choice of lifestyle you can not get a meal because of a medical condition.

Supermarkets are always being asked about and provide detailed ingredients but airlines seem to think this is not necessary. It is not possible to simply get a full ingredients list for each meal. Why not I don't know because the impact of someone going into anaphylactic shock at 30,000 ft is surely worth the effort.

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