walkingtall

Flew Manchester to Heathrow on Tuesday 3rd in CE, on boarding a passenger told the crew about a peanut allergy and made an announcement about not selling and asking passengers to refrain from eating peanuts.

Meal was served and the desert has peanuts on the top , I asked if this was sensible as they had given a peanut warning , i was told it wasn't a problem due to the passenger being down the back of the plane.

I am no expert in either allergies to peanuts , but would it be worth the risk in serving desert ?

Orange.Man

I believe there is a study out in internet land somewhere that talks about Nut Allergy's and Planes.

From memory, you'd have to be sat next to the individual for them to get any kind of reaction from even a severe nut allergy (according to the this study) anything further away is of no risk.

PETER01

I see this amongst other various points on ba.com (under food allergies nearer the bottom) so I presume they take that as professional advice.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-us...-and-pregnancy

• When boarding the aircraft you must inform Cabin Crew of your severe peanut or tree nut allergy. If you request it, Cabin Crew will make an announcement so that other passengers are aware of your allergy. Cabin Crew will also suspend the serving of loose nut snacks in your cabin of travel.

madfish

Often1

I don't read it that way. I don't know what the exact service item was, but "nuts on top" is not necessarily "loose nut snacks."

Frankly, the whole thing is a sop. It is not as though BA cleans the seatback pockets and crevices around seats where people purposely stuff wrappers from all manner of items and where peanuts and the "dust" from the packaging all winds up anyway. If this were a serious issue, BA ---- and other carriers ---- would specially clean and vacum with a micro-filter, the area around the affected passenger.

Wifie

We flew back to LHR on 30th December CE with a similar situation. Announcement made that no loose nuts would be served throughout the aircraft due to a passenger in ET with a severe allergy, however the CE dessert was some sort of date cake with a nut topping and this was served to CE passengers. We queried this with the cabin crew member who agreed it seemed anomalous but they thought that, as the nuts on top of the dessert were not loose but "cemented" in place with a sugary glaze this probably would not pose a problem.

PETER01

OP was in CE and the allergy sufferer was down the back. I have no idea madfish and maybe a staffer will comment as some will no doubt have experience of this but if it were in the same cabin then I would imagine people would just forfeit their dessert as medical considerations overide everything and personally I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

walkingtall

If the rules are different cabin , then the cabin crew was correct , as the passenger was in Y

it wasn't loose nuts , just a desert topped with nuts , to be honest i did not eat the meal , but certainly looked like nuts when it was served and the CC did confirm it was peanut

PETER01

Thank you for that Wifie and a warm welcome to Flyertalk and the BA Board. I hope you enjoy being here and a great place for many things including other forums.

email2markt

Yeh it's all a bit annoying, I wonder how many nuts incidents actually caused medical emergencies onboard last year.

I was on a "no nuts" flight a couple of months ago. Due to BOB, i had brought some Graze nuts to feed my hunger on the 3.5 hour flight and wasn't able to eat them. At one point the crew said the passenger was having a flare up and please could everyone double check that no-one had opened any peanuts.

I'm pretty sure the flare up would be due to all the nuts bed into the dirty economy seat lining and nothing to do with any of the other passengers. I believe BA could make allergy sufferers (of all ilks) more comfortable by serving a few more pretzels and deep cleaning more often. The "don't eat nuts" thing, it's about as useful as "please take care on the stairs" and feels very legal/compliant as opposed to beneficial.

PETER01

I can't see the annoying part when someone has a health issue and a bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss. Surely prevention is better than cure? If it meant you couldn't eat a packet of nuts for 3 hours it's no real hardship really. BA do advise nut allergy sufferers they can pre-board and also advise to wipe their seat down which is beneficial I would assume. Personally I can only remember one instance when an announcement was made re peanuts and that was a few years ago.

email2markt

I'm getting a bit more sceptical in my old age, i guess i'm saying I need convincing there's some scientific merit behind it, rather than a legal team.

Can I help you

I would be very surprised if it was peanut, the only time BA say they serve peanuts is in First ex KUL when we serve satay.

PETER01

There already is. Nuts, Shellfish and a variety of lots of other things can cause people to go into anaphylactic shock and can require urgent medical intervention in some cases. A friends daughter has it and it can be serious for some if precautions aren't taken and I can say that from the horses mouth so to speak.

crazy8534

Have a look at this professor.

It's just wonderful when people with no idea and no training pass comments on things they know nothing about but it appears that this is the kind of post-expert, post-knowledge world we live in...