orbitmic

My guess here is that we probably don't know the whole story here. If I were to make a total wild guess, I would imagine a heated row upon embarkation with the family asking for more guarantees and the captain taking a hardline and saying 'well, if what you need is totally guaranteed nut-free environment, then we can't assure that, you're not flying'.

The thing is that, as mentioned by KLouis, if the poor boy is like NOLAnwGOLD's nephew (or his classmate? Thought you mentioned the classmate first), I don't think KLM could have done anything. Indeed, as you suggest, anybody having recently eaten nuts would present a risk, anybody coming onboard with an open bag of nuts would present a risk, etc. In other words, if you can sit the kid in row 69 (which I assume is where the family would want to be seated right, as far back as possible is the only place that would make sense to them) but the cashews of row 5 still presented a risk to him, then there is simply no way he would not be at risk because of all the passengers in between. KLM does not have the right to forbid passengers from bringing their own peanuts on board, and considering the crap food we get in KL's Y class, I know many people who do, they can't forbit people from eating peanuts earlier in the day and can't force them to vacuum clean their clothes to remove traces of the said nuts, etc. Bottom line, 'totally nuts free' indeed literally cannot be guaranteed by any airline any time.

I do really feel sorry for the kid because serious allergies are terribly worrisome. The fact that some people now find it fashionable to claim 'allergies' to anything their body is intolerant to - if not anything they do not like - should not make us forget that serious allergies can cause death, and with allergies to such a volatile product, the only thing the parents can do is to keep a small bottle of cortisone and a hypodermic needle in case their son starts an allergic reaction. This is horrible, unfair, and whatever you want, but I simply don't see what those (undoubtedly rightly) complaining about selfish co-flyers think that KLM did wrong and should have done differently that would have made any difference. Precisely because, as you suggest, you can't count on the selfless co-operation of 400 fellow passengers, the 'nuttiness' of the environment is not fully controlled by the airline.