Airline Threads

[spacecanada]

Has Delta recently stopped serving nuts and peanuts on their flights?  I read several comments on an article about the recent AA lawsuit and thought I would double check with some Americans here who know more.  (I tried calling and the person on the other end couldn't confirm one way or the other.)

[rebekahc]

From the Delta website:

When you notify us that you have a peanut allergy, we'll refrain from serving peanuts and peanut products onboard your flight. We'll also advise cabin service to board additional non-peanut snacks, which will allow our flight attendants to serve these snack items to everyone within this area. Gate agents will be notified in case you'd like to pre-board and cleanse the immediate seating area. Unfortunately we still can't guarantee that the flight will be completely peanut-free. Note that some snack products on board may be processed in plants which also process peanut products.

If you need to make us aware of a peanut allergy for an upcoming flight, please visit My Trips or call Delta reservations at 1-800-221-1212.

So unless they haven't updated their website, they do serve peanuts on flights with no noted peanut allergies.

That policy seems a bit ambiguous, though - will they 'refrain from serving peanuts onboard your flight' or will they just serve peanut free snack items to 'everyone within this area'?  What is this area? (It used to be just the rows/seats around an allergic passenger)

[spacecanada]

That's what I thought, which is why we avoid them like the plague... residue EVERYWHERE!  Yet, people were saying so many things about how they are fabulous for PA (which I doubted), so I had to ask.  Thanks for clarification. 

[candyguru]

We flew Westjet to Orlando last month... excellent as always. They made an announcement asking passengers not to eat peanut products and they also went to the 3 rows around us and personally asked the passengers not to eat peanut products due to allergic flyers. And they also served peanut-free salty/sweet snacks to the passengers (they do not serve bagged peanuts).

[joshsmom]

Just wanted to post that we had amazing flight on United. Flew from VA to CA. We preboarded, wiped everything down and no nuts served. It was overall a great experience and the kids loved it! Will definitely be using United again.

[spacecanada]

I guess I should chime in with our recent flights also.  I called both airlines to add allergies to my file and request buffer zones, as permitted.

Air Canada
We chose not to preboard on any of our flights since we were already in one of the first groups to get on the plane. 
Flight #1 - flight attendant came to ask about my allergies, if I had EpiPens, and made a buffer zone announcement.  Great.
Flight #2 - flight attendant just made a buffer zone announcement without checking with me (though I ordered a buffer zone ahead of time; they only asked people not to consume peanuts and cashews though, which was super weird and wrong.)
Flight #3 - nothing: no check, no buffer zone announcement, nothing.  I reminded them eventually, but even then they didn't make the right buffer zone announcement again, just saying peanuts this time after I specifically said all nuts and peanuts.
Flight #4 - nothing again!!  It was a super short 11-minute flight, so I didn't mention it.  Plus, we had a disturbing experience at the gate that threw everyone off their game, so I don't blame them for this one.  I will give the gate agent kudos for noticing my husband and I were seated separately (10 rows apart) and calling us up to seat us together, as she wanted me to have my husband nearby if I needed assistance (in case of reaction) - so that was really nice. 

United
Flight #1 - no accommodations made other than they said they would let me preboard if I wanted to
Flight #2 - same as above

Verdict: I was less than pleased with Air Canada's allergy protocols this trip.  I could have put more effort on my end, certainly, to prompt the flight attendants to do things right, but I guess I'm so used to WestJet doing things so well I wasn't on top of it.  (Plus, I actually of wanted to test Air Canada for my clients' sake to see what their allergy protocols are like for people who may not prompt everything to happen as it should.)  It's not that they did a poor job, but Air Canada could have done better without my prompting.  As for United, I didn't expect anything and wasn't told they would make an announcement, so I got what I expected, much like when flying American, only the United phone agent was far more organised when noting the allergies on my file. 

We normally fly WestJet exclusively, and we'll be sticking with them whenever possible, for sure; there's no question they have better allergy policies than Air Canada does.  I'll be booking my clients on WestJet whenever possible too. 

[spacecanada]

For anyone wondering what an airline's medical kit looks like, here is the one from Air Canada:
https://youtu.be/h5iKxHO5oVY
Plenty of epinephrine.

[my3guys]

Southwest Airlines just announced they won't offer peanuts starting in August of this year.

[hezzier]

I was just coming to post the same thing. 

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/07/09/southwest-airlines-ditching-peanuts/

[spacecanada]

Me too!  It's a three month trial, and they may introduce something to replace peanuts, but fingers crossed!!  This is great news for those of us with contact and/or airborne peanut allergies!  Or anxiety about flying with a peanut allergy in general without any reaction history - we all win.

Complainers can bring their own snacks, which we have to do anyway -- since those pretzels are apparently made in a facility with peanuts, too. 

[GoingNuts]

This is really awesome news, since Southwest operates out of a small regional airport near here, and I'd love that option for DS.  So much easier/pleasanter than JFK or LGA. 

[chase]

Delta brought back their peanuts after one month of removing them.  Too many people complained.  We (PA families) need to flood Southwest with thank you letters. 

[spacecanada]

I didn't hear the reason about why Delta brought back peanuts - that's so sad it was due to complaints.    

[GoingNuts]

Korean Air Stops Serving Peanuts:

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/03/30/world/asia/30reuters-korean-air-peanut.html