harryhood

My daughter has a few food allergies and I find UA unhelpful in dealing with this. I am not sure they are any worse than any other airlines, of course, but it still is an opportunity to be helpful

We are not the kind to demand every last peanut be removed from the plane, but in planning for long haul flights it gets very difficult finding her suitable food because no allergen information is provided by UA as to its meals. Preselecting vegetarian or vegan options don't always help because either one may contain peanuts (one of her allergens) and I have seen vegetarian dishes with eggs in them (her other allergen).

UA's website offers nothing, I have called UA before flights (even during booking) to see what info I can get, but no dice. Only on domestic flights where a prepackaged meals are available can I get allergen info -- on the wrapper itself.

Does anyone else have this issue? Have you had success navigating it with UA? Just looking to make long haul flying with my young daughter easier (and lighter so we don't have to pack her meal on every flight).

mduell

This PDF covers a handful of global carriers allergen policies. It notes that UA wants to be informed of your allergies at the time of booking, and is peanut-free. No word on eggs.

The robust plan is to bring all of your own food for your child. Anything else is setting yourself up for failure when catering doesn't match expectations (either contents or documentation).

pseudoswede

Hello fellow Denverite,

It just so happens that my daughter is also allergic to peanuts and eggs (along with dairy, most tree nuts, and sesame). She has now done approximately 14 long-haul (TATL) trips. The fact of the matter is that I would never trust ANY airline to provide her with a meal that she could safely eat. The last thing I'd ever want is for her to go into anaphylactic shock in the skies (and causing a diversion).

Unfortunately, that means we need to pack enough food for her not only for the duration of the trip, but at least one extra day just in case of cancellations and delays. We have almost a whole carry-on dedicated to just her food. This includes plain pasta, vegan Swedish pancakes, canned Vienna sausage, ham sandwiches, vegan chocolate shakes, vegan energy bars, granola, soy or rice milk, dry cereal, vegan chocolate, vegan cookies, Pop-Tarts, Pringles, etc.

I think the most daring thing I've let her eat from a child's meal the airline (BA) provided is a bag of potato chips.

There is no real easy way to travel with a child with food allergies.

lhrsfo

Ditto about bringing your own food but this is not possible if traveling to, and connecting in, the US. US airport food is very allergen unfriendly and so the OP's daughter may have to go hungry for the last part of her journey.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Truthfully, the onus is on you, as the parent. Expecting a company as large and complex as United to get it right on one child on one flight is putting a lot of faith in the system. Bring her the food she might need and take the gamble on UA out of the equation..

pseudoswede

Before UA decided to decimate EWR with a nouveau dining concept (and what ORD did in T5), seeing a McDonald's was actually a welcoming site for us. We knew we could order a hamburger and fries, and we knew the food would be consistent and safe.

At EWR, I believe I could get a safe meal for her at Tony Roma's, and maybe Subway, but that's about it, and none of them are in Terminal C.

garykung

Although it definitely sounds like an UA issue, it is not. UA simply orders the food from catering companies and has no idea what they are ordering.

If you are willing to risk it, order a special meal. Otherwise, bringing your own food will be always the risk-free solution.

sbm12

UA specifies EXACTLY what will be served on its planes. But the prep facility will have potential cross-contamination issues unless you go Kosher (dedicated kitchen, double wrapped) but that doesn't necessarily exclude eggs or nuts.

lhrsfo

Cross-contamination is a big issue. But, leaving that aside, it would not be difficult to have an allergen ingredient list for each dish boarded - after all, in most Western countries, all restaurants have to do this for all their meals.

lhrsfo

Depends upon the allergens, but there's nothing I can eat at McDonalds, Tony Roma's or Subway.

televisor

A lot of meals in international economy seem to have ingredients printed on the foil-lid/wrapper, I don't know how accurate/useful/etc this is though, and I don't know if that's consistent (I tend not to pay attention to food on eastbounds, but westbounds with EU produced meals seem to have labelling).

100% Green

Maybe not helpful, but this information I think is also on the website:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...gredients.aspx

Darlox

It's more complicated than that. For a restaurant (at least a good one), most of the ingredients are known, because they're assembling them in-house, or their supply chain is only a link or two deep. For an industrial foodservice operation, the supply chain can be VERY deep indeed. The foodservice distributor often packs or re-packs their own materials, many of which have themselves been sourced from a co-packer who prepares product to-spec, often sourced from a supplier who may have treated or otherwise adulterated the raw product for shelf-stability and large-scale use. Sysco and GFS aren't exactly popping out to the local farmer's market, and buying small-farm organic chicken for that plate of teriyaki chicken you get served on the plane to London...

So there's cross-contamination potential at _every_ link in that chain. But then there is also the fact that for UA to take a stand on allergens, they would have to be 100% confident in the accuracy of every link in that chain. Even if feasible, that's a trust and liability I couldn't see any company taking. So (as OP discovered), they're just going to say nothing and commit to nothing. (Snack boxes, and pre-packaged food is much easier, because their supplier has taken that stand, and they can simply pass it along. Individually prepared foods, served as TATL meals, are much harder to indemnify.)

Anytime your supply chain gets more than 1 or 2 links deep, caveat emptor.

cmdinnyc

Wow, that's pretty helpful!

cmdinnyc

The flip side is that those big giants are required by law to manage and disclose the big 8 allergens, so when Sysco is sourcing soup from Campbells or Progresso that's all tracked and known. Supply chain tracking goes pretty deep now.

The real challenge to me is that, even if United offers a meal that could work, there's a reasonable chance that the meal won't make it on the plane, either due to IRROPS, a catering issue, or some other problem.