Hallelujah, we’ve been heard. If you ask a flight attendant on WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline, she or he will step to the microphone and ask fellow passengers to please not pull out nut or peanut snacks. The attendant will briefly explain that this is because there is a person onboard with serious allergies.
This won’t be a big deal to most of WestJet’s passengers, but that little announcement is a huge deal to those who travel with serious peanut or tree nut allergies.
A p.a. announcement asking other passengers to “please refrain from eating” certain allergenic foods and was one of two key recommendations in Allergic Living’s “Reduce the Risk” write-in campaign, in which 1,100 Canadians wrote letters to the chief executives of both WestJet and Air Canada. The other was for clear, consistent policies, communicated to airline staff.
That lobby carried weight with WestJet, the airline’s longtime spokesman makes clear. The campaign “raised the profile of the issue; the letters made a big difference,” says Robert Palmer. “I still have them at my desk. They’re a constant reminder that this is an extremely important issue,” he says.
So pat yourselves on the back. You did it, allergy community, you got a major airline to listen and understand. And then they acted. Anaphylaxis Canada deserves credit for organizing confidential policy review discussions with WestJet earlier this year. (Talks included the main three allergy groups, allergists and Allergic Living.) That kept the issue of a formal allergy policy in front of executives of a busy airline.
As most of you know, Air Canada also just passed its formal policy. The timing is coincidence. Air Canada was told to finalize a formal policy by the Canadian Transportation Agency and the deadline was December 2. The CTA set out that Air Canada should set rules for an “exclusion” or buffer zone to protect those flying with nut of peanut allergies.
Air Canada complied and now you can request a small zone (where the attendants will ask other passengers not to eat peanuts or nuts) that consists in economy of the row you’re in, the row ahead and behind.
Outside the zone, other passengers can eat what they like and cashews and almonds, which Air Canada contends it can’t ask others to give up, will still be sold from the cart.
But requesting Air Canada’s buffer zone is a cumbersome process, which requires a form filled out by your doctor and faxed to the airline’s medical desk in addition to a call to Reservations to book, makes me wonder how many allergic frequent flyers will request this accommodation.
Still, this is a concession from an airline that flies 31 million passengers a year. It is a beginning. And at least in Canada, there are no peanuts being handed out by the airlines as is still dangerously the case on a few U.S. carriers.
Times have changed, and most airlines still aren’t aware that food allergies, which once were called rare, now affect two million Canadians and up to 12 million Americans – and that’s not counting those who fly with them.
WestJet is the kind of company that chose to hear the allergic community because as Palmer says “it’s the right thing to do.” With a few more executives with that attitude, with more awareness of the speed with which anaphylaxis can take hold, and with the strength of our community’s numbers, I truly hope the leadership shown by WestJet this week will be emulated by other airlines over the next couple of years.
It will take consistent reporting to the airlines – whatever airline – of any reactions allergic passengers experience onboard. (Better data is needed, so if you’re unfortunate enough to react – do tell the head office.)
And my friends, keep those letter-writing skills sharpened. It will take more campaigns, more negotiations, but greater allergy accommodations in the skies can happen.
For today, WestJet “gets” that safety trumps a handful of nuts for a couple of hours on a plane. And tomorrow? Others will, too.
AllerDine
For years now, Air Canada’s Ad Hoc treatment of food allergic travelers has worked out well for my family. Having 2 kids with serious allergies to many of the foods people like to eat on planes has always been the most anxious point of our lives. 30,000 feet in the air, there is no hospital 30 minutes away if there were a reaction. Most of the flight crews at Air Canada would make an announcement and then not serve the snack if the allergen was the snack.
That all changed earlier this month and now, after our first flight, I have to say, Air Canada has taken a very risky approach to satisfying the Canadian Transport Agency’s ruling that Air Canada require a formal policy. A very small buffer zone of 1 seat surrounding the allergic passenger does not address issues that so many of us are concerned with. A snack service will not be stopped for any allergy. A passenger two rows behind can eat the nuts or any other food without any notice or request not to. Air filtration on each aircraft is different. Although the CTA determined that the HEPA filters are sufficient to filter 99.7% of allergens, they did not recognize the different air flow on each aircraft and the risk of exposure before the air is filtered. There was also a complete overlooking of the airborne allergic risks.
We arrived safely at our destination, not because we were protected with the new buffer zone, but rather because we begged our In-Charge flight attendant to make the announcement and not serve the cashews aboard our flight. We bless his heart for understanding and hope that Air Canada can evolve this policy to reflect the real concerns of their passengers, and not stick to a minimalist approach of dealing with the situation.
Until then, WestJet seems to be the only option for our future vacations and thankfully, due to the efforts of Allergic Living and many others, we have a choice now to take our business to an airline that wants our business and is willing to apply a reasonable approach to reducing the risk of exposure and safety for all its’ passengers.
Steve
AllerDine.com
wcoastadult
I won’t fly Westjet. I once had a Westjet flight attendant tell me in a belligerent tone that almonds were not nuts when I objected to them being served. When I called to complain after the flight, I found that she had reported me as a problem passenger because her manner and attitude brought me to tears. All nuts need to be banned. I know it might not affect a passenger who wants to eat their nuts if someone is sickened, but I bet a death would cause them an inconvient delay.
dairy/sesame/treenut allergy
I completely disagree with buffer zones and here’s why.
One cannot have an anaphylaxis reaction sitting near their allergen, and with multiple food allergies, we can’t realistically expect travelers to adhere to our food restrictions, especially without warning or training. Imagine boarding a plane with OUR family with the following anaphylaxis allergens: dairy (inc coffee cream, yogurt and cheese), beef, nuts, sesame, pineapple, shellfish! Instead, we must learn to manage our anxiety around our allergens, wash our hands, pack our own snacks and meds, and not rely on others to stop eating food, just because we can’t. The science has proven we can only have a reaction if we touch, or ingest our allergen, or in the very rare occasion, inhale a small particle, when cracking open a ‘peanut in a shell’, or in the case of “fish, shellfish and dairy”, inhale the steamed cooking odors of those foods. Last I checked, planes didn’t serve peanuts in the shell. We cannot have an allergic reaction being in the presence of our allergen, but we can experience anxiety which we must learn to manage.
For our family we manage our allergies very well on a flight. In fact, a typical flight for our family involves us eating food the other is allergic too, and we all sit together without incidence. The restrictions on fruit, veg and meat on a U.S. flight, means for protein, we must pack nuts for my dairy allergic daughter, and cheese for our nut allergic daughter.
My severely ‘anaphylaxis to dairy’ 15 year old daughter is regularly in the presence of dairy, because the world is surrounded by dairy. I stopped trying to make her world dairy free years ago, (or face social exclusion). My daughter comfortably went to theaters surrounded by buttered popcorn, pizza restaurants for team dinners, birthday parties with ice cream cake and more.
Change everyone else and make her world dairy free? No. We’ve learned it can’t be done. If we try, people stop inviting us. My daughter is now a mature 15 year old who’s travelled extensively, on remote outdoor excursions, plane trips by herself, school and sport trips etc. We take the upmost of precautions, but have never requested a ‘buffer zone’ for her or my ‘anaphylaxis to sesame and tree nuts’ younger daughter.
And in requesting ‘buffer zones’, has anyone thought about the ramifications if every type of allergen started having ‘buffer zones’? One could only imagine the chaos as flight attendants started announcing a long list of what couldn’t be eaten, and what rows the restrictions applied to etc. Every flight would be delayed getting off the ground managing the extensive game of musical chairs to try and create buffer zones for every allergen.
So reconsider where this ‘request for buffer zones’ will take us in the allergy world…to a place of frustration and impatience amongst fellow travelers, and decreased empathy for our cause.