Strattonflyer

Egoldstein

I used to order the gluten free meal (in Y long-haul), and found that the meal was also used for dairy free, diabetic, low calorie, and possibly other options. It was usually a basic fish or chicken with rice, and gluten and dairy free (and flavour free as well). The starter was some sort of salad and dessert was usually a few slices of fruit.

If you are strictly avoiding certain things, I recommend bringing ample snacks or additional food as I've had them serve me things that were clearly not gluten free (package marked wheat).

chris1922Mk2

It helps to know which route and class.

My wife requires GF, and tries to avoid dairy if she can. Our recent experiences were a TATL in F, where she was able to pick a regular F meal in advance by perusing the "chefs chat" sheet, which list all allergens in the dishes. Also a CE to Berlin with a domestic connection, she was given a caprese salad on all four legs, which while GF obviously had mozzarella cheese in it. It was the vegetarian meal too I believe.
Also just had a WT/WT+ TATL, where the GF meal was bland chicken/rice both legs. Her breakfast before UK arrival was especially poor, to the point where the CSM brought a fruit platter from F for her !

As mentioned above, one special meal probably covers a few bases..............

Strattonflyer

chris1922Mk2

Not sure if catering is loaded from the outstation at HER, or carried from the UK, but as mentioned my wife had a CE GFML with cheese in it. WT+ from LHR will obviously be loaded from there and would likely be fine.

corporate-wage-slave

All CE is catered from London, so there is a risk that the generic Vegetarian etc meal would be loaded. See the Club Europe meals thread (in the Dashboard) for recent examples, you want to look at Long routes at the end of the thread. Given that HER is a relatively long European flight, I would perhaps think of bringing some cheap and good quality fruit and vegetable available in Crete.

MissingContinental

My husband also has a gluten allergy. We call the GF offering "the meal that will offend no one"- he has had good results ordering carefully from regular menu and removing croutons, sauces, etc. (however he seems to tolerant exposure to very minor amounts of gluten so this works for him- someone with a serious allergy should not take this route)

corporate-wage-slave

Or lowest common denominator, would be another way of putting it For very regular travellers it's a bigger nuisance since they see very little variation in meals over the course of the year. Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum MissingContinental, it's good to see you here, and I hope that we will see more of you.

1K-SFO

maisiedormouse

likethis

Searched this forum for 'gluten' looking for an answer myself - did you fly yet? What did you end up doing?

I'm coeliac, and flying LHR-SYD soon, F there, J back, so considering the best policy here. I've read mixed responses as to whether if you choose a special meal you can refuse it and ask for something else (in a premium cabin).

I've read the F special meals are just CW meals replated, and that there's somthing called "chef's chat", which details allergens, so tempted to be able to have a steak (with no gravy) rather than a vegan salad. The worst part I've found in Y is missing out on the dairy, as they lump this in with dairy-free unfortunately.

1K-SFO

My partner ended up simply ordering off the F menu and did pretty well. It's now been about a month and I've forgotten what he ordered, but I think it was a beef main course. Ultimately, he decided better to try to cobble something together off the menu versus special order something that was an unknown and potentially not very tasty.