Helpless? Flying with a Peanut Allergy

Yesterday, Amy Wicker, author of  the Allergy Safe Travel website, launched her short documentary, “More Than an Inconvenience,” which highlights the trials of six people with food allergies who have experienced allergic reactions while traveling by air.  At the same time yesterday, she was in Washington DC meeting with airlines representatives, legislators and I believe with  Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) staff to discuss her film and finding solutions for safer air travel.  Flying with allergies has been a very difficult area for those of us managing food anaphylaxis.   As a parent, I’m placing my food allergic child in a tube that is soaring thousands of miles above ground where he will be surrounded by his allergen with high hopes that he doesn’t make contact with these allergens (nuts, seeds and dairy).  Not comforting to say the least and this leaves me feeling helpless at times.

Image “airplane view” courtesy of kangshutter via freedgitialphotos.net
Prevention.  I board early, I wipe down the area including the seat, the magazine pouch, tray tables, light switch, you name it.  If he eats, he only consumes food I brought along.  I request that a nut allergy announcement be made.  This often does not work since some airlines have policy against making such statements.  Then I say a prayer.  I didn’t fly when he was young since he could not verbally alert me to a reaction and we currently fly very limited due to large amount of nuts and seeds he will be exposed to which makes for a very, very long flight.

Flying With Food Allergies: What You Need to Know by Laurel Francouer, Esq.
The Conversation has started.  Recently though, the conversation is heating up over flying with allergies.  Laural Francouer, lawyer, author. food allergy advocate and co-founder of Green Laurel Documents, published the ground breaking book, Flying With Food Allergies: What You Need to Know last year during the spring of 2013.  Later this year, Lianne Mandelbaum, launched the No Nut Traveler website where she is collecting stories from airline customers regarding their allergy experiences while flying.  I wrote about Lianne in my blog post, “What About the Airline and Food Allergies”?  The No Nut Traveler is spear heading an Airline Bill of Rights petition asking the airline industry to create a bill of rights for food allergic children and adults.

I am very anxious to learn more about Amy’s visit with the airline officials, FARE’s role in advocating to the airline industry and most of all..how is all of this information being received by the airline industry.  Even more important:  what can they do?  Let’s face it, hundreds of thousands of people move across the country daily and trying to create policy regarding managing food allergies and these thousands of travelers is no small task.  Clearly, there are no absolute easy answers but starting these kinds of conversation are critical.  I knew that FARE had been working on this issue a while back, but then stopped their work-for reasons that I am not aware of.  I hope this issue remains in the limelight and the focus continues to grow.

The renewed focus on food allergies and the airline industry will be one that I am most interested in at this point!