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A family was removed from a flight over their daughter’s peanut allergy.
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Cabin crew refused to ask other passengers not to eat nuts, so the family made their own announcement.
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Airlines refusing to make nut allergy announcements is a common problem that frustrates many.
A family was kicked off a flight for orchestrating an announcement over their daughter’s peanut allergy, according to multiple reports.
Georgie Palmer was flying along with her husband and two daughters from London to Dalaman, Turkey, with SunExpress on May 21, when the dispute broke out, according to the MailOnline.
Palmer’s daughter, Rosie, has a severe peanut allergy that can result in a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction, she told the outlet.
But airline staff refused to make a standard announcement asking other passengers not to eat peanuts. According to an Instagram post seen by the Mail, Palmer took matters into her own hands.
“We gently asked the passengers at the front of the plane to share our request,” she wrote. “Row by row, as swift as a carefully crafted toppling domino trail, all the passengers turned back to kindly ask the row behind to please not eat nuts on the flight.”
None of the passengers minded at all, she said.
But, she told the Mail, it enraged the pilot. She said he began to yell at them and ultimately ordered them to leave. As a result, the family spent around $6,400 booking alternative flights and hotels, she said.
In a statement to the Mail, a spokesperson for SunExpress said the airline does not make announcements like this as it “cannot guarantee an allergen-free environment on our flights.”
Passengers have to notify the airline of special requirements 48 hours in advance, the spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement. They said Palmer didn’t do that.
Palmer, in response, told the BBC that she had tried to make contact but could not reach anyone.
The airline also told the Mail that Palmer’s husband, Nick Sollom, was “aggressive” to the crew and “tried to gain access to the cockpit.”
Palmer told the BBC that claim was “absolute nonsense.”
Speaking to the Mail, Sollom said that he knocked on the cockpit door to discuss the situation with the pilot but denied being aggressive.
In response to these denials, the airline’s spokesperson told BI that it “stands by what it has said about this.”
The incident highlights the amount of planning frequent flyers with allergies need to undertake, with only a handful of major airlines — including British Airways, Air Canada, Southwest, Delta, and JetBlue making accommodations like this a standard part of their policies.
An advocate for people with serious allergies said SunExpress was at fault.
Nadim Ednan-Laperouse, the co-founder of the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, said in a post to Facebook that SunExpress should “immediately” revisit its policies.
“‘Food allergies are an illness not a lifestyle choice, and the experience of this family on board a plane is shocking and unacceptable,” he said.
“Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.”
It’s true — SunExpress is far from the only airline that has refused to make the potentially life-saving announcement about allergies.
Passengers of United and Lufthansa have described unpleasant encounters over the issue.
In August last year one allergic passenger resorted to spending $185 to buy her flight’s entire peanut supply.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Source Agencies
