One small change can save a life.
“Put the nuts away”
One in seven of us is affected by potentially life-threatening food allergies when we travel.
It’s time to take food allergies seriously. While incidents are rare, the number of people whose holidays and travel plans could be affected by potentially life-threatening allergies is on the rise.
The Safer Tourism Foundation is launching a campaign to bring awareness to this important issue and to ask both travellers and travel operators to make changes to keep those travelling with food allergies safe.
A critical risk area for travel
Our latest research reveals that food allergies are a growing concern, with the proportion of travellers reporting severe allergies impacting their travel plans rising by 25% in the last year, going from one in 8 to one in 7 travellers affected.
Food allergies don’t just affect the person with the allergy – they are a serious concern for anyone travelling with that person.
1 in 7 travellers knows someone with a potentially life-threatening food allergy.
“So what’s the deal with allergies?”
Allergies are on the rise. Recent studies have shown that food allergies in the UK have more than doubled since 2008, and this is even more pronounced in young children.
It’s estimated that between 2 and 3 percent of children in the UK have a food allergy, and between 1 and 2 percent of adults. Allergies to food are the most common cause of anaphylaxis, an allergic reaction that can be fatal.
In the last two decades, the number of hospital admissions resulting from allergic reactions have doubled, according to numbers released by Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). When it comes to food-related anaphylaxis and other adverse reactions, the rise is even more significant, increasing from just under 2,000 admissions twenty years ago (1,971 admissions) to over 5,000 in 2022 (5,013 admissions, a 154% increase).
When the worst happens
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died on a flight in 2018 after eating a baguette that contained sesame seeds. Her mother and father, Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse cofounded the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation in her memory.
In 2021, Joe Dobson passed away while travelling in Mexico after going into anaphylactic shock from eating a burrito that contained sesame, despite repeatedly telling staff that he was fatally allergic to it.
Habiba Chishti, the 9-year old daughter of an NHS doctor died after eating an ice cream while on holiday with her family in Malaga. Despite her dad checking three times that the sauce on the ice cream did not contain nuts, Habiba went into anaphylactic shock and staff at the hospital could not save her.
Amy May Shead suffered brain damage, and is now partially paralysed, and unable to see or speak properly following a severe allergic reaction from eating just one bite of a meal that contained nuts while on holiday with friends in Budapest.
How allergies impact travel
We asked people who have a life-threatening food allergy and those who travel with allergic travellers to tell us how living with a severe allergy impacts their holidays. The results are clear - allergies play a significant role in how people plan, prepare for and experience travel.
Two in three tell us they take extra precautions - an insight which is reflected in Imperial College London’s findings that the likelihood of people with allergies suffering a reaction on a flight is lower than it is on the ground. This drop in frequency is not necessarily due to a lower risk, but largely due to the fact that those with allergies go to extraordinary lengths to keep themselves safe and minimise their own personal risk.
How do your/your family member’s allergies affect your travel experience?
When it comes to travel planning and booking decisions, allergies play a critical role in how travellers choose their providers. Two in five (42%) allergic travellers are deeply invested in a travel provider’s reputation with regards to how they manage allergies. Taking this a step further, one in three (33%) prioritise their provider’s health and safety policies OVER cost when it comes time to choose who they travel with.
And ultimately, travellers with allergies are a loyal bunch. A third of those who travel with allergies (32%) tend to go back to the same travel provider time and time again when they’ve had a good experience because they have confidence in the provider’s ability to handle their unique requirements.
“Put the Nuts Away”
Our campaign
Recent media reports and personal experiences attest to the lack of consistency when it comes to airline policies regarding passengers with food allergies. Some make announcements for any passenger with a potentially life-threatening food allergy as a matter of course, while others sometimes do and sometimes don’t. And in extreme cases, an airline may even refuse to let a passenger with allergies board.
Several airlines and rail operators have started offering clarity in their menus around food allergens, and some carry auto-adrenaline injectors.
But as of today, there is no globally recognised standard when it comes to managing life-threatening allergies on commercial flights.
Our campaign calls for more transparency, consistency and pragmatism in transport operators’ approaches to managing passengers with potentially life-threatening allergies.
Campaign asks
The ‘Put the Nuts Away’ campaign has three simple and straightforward asks, on behalf of passengers:
Airlines and rail operators should have clear, transparent and publicly available policies on how they manage travellers with life threatening allergies
Airlines and rail operators should follow through consistently on their policies, across the traveller journey - what is written on a website should be what happens at the gate, and on the flight or train
Airlines and rail operators should ensure planes and trains are equipped with a minimum of two (in-date) auto-adrenaline injectors and ensure crew are trained on how to use them
The human experience behind the statistics.
When Georgie Palmer and her family of four headed off on holiday last year, they took all the proper precautions.
Georgie’s daughter suffers from a potentially life-threatening allergy to peanuts, and it was not the first time they had travelled. They checked their airline’s policy and contacted the airline to declare their daughter’s allergy. They were told that an all-passenger announcement would be made to ensure no one consumed nuts on the flight. All was well.
It wasn’t until they arrived at the gate that things started to go wrong. The staff at the gate told the Palmers that no announcement would be made as they could not guarantee an allergen-free environment. When Georgie and husband Paul then took it upon themselves to let the passengers in the rows around them know about their child’s allergy and ask them not to eat nuts, the airplane crew asked the Palmers to leave.
Despite fellow passengers responding with kindness and understanding, the Palmers were escorted off the flight. Simply for asking the people around them to help keep their daughter safe.
“As the mother of a child with a life-threatening food allergy, I know how nerve-wracking it is to plan and go on holiday. At home, you can control most aspects of your environment but when travelling, you’re placing your trust in others. And all you want is clarity, consistency and ultimately, kindness.
“Last year, we experienced first-hand how a lack of uniformity can lead to a nightmare travel scenario – we were forced to get off a plane after the airline failed to adhere to their own policy. However, despite all the problems this caused for us, it’s nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
“It’s time for regulators and transport providers to apply a systematic approach when it comes to protecting travellers with severe allergies. We’re quite simply asking that every transport operator has a clear, publicly available policy in place and that this is carried out for the entirety of the travel journey,”
Now Georgie is joining forces with Safer Tourism to call for clear and consistent policies from airlines and rail providers.
Georgie Palmer is a broadcast journalist and mother of a daughter with a life-threatening allergy to peanuts.
Following her family's horrendous travel experience, she is advocating for everyone who travels with severe allergies as brand ambassador for the Safer Tourism Foundation.
“Food-allergic reactions are uncommon on modern aircraft, but this is almost certainly because of measures people with food allergies take to keep themselves safe.
“While it is rare for people to get allergic reactions due to “airborne allergens” while flying, there are very real risks from touching seat surfaces or entertainment screens which may have been contaminated with food. Passengers with food allergies should be allowed to preboard to clean their seat area, and airlines should have clear policies which are applied consistently to help food-allergic individuals feel confident when flying,”
— Dr Paul Turner, Professor of Anaphylaxis research at Imperial College London
Kindness is free. Put the nuts away.
For those of us who are lucky enough not to have potentially life-threatening allergies, it can be hard to understand the impact we can have simply by eating, or not eating, a small snack.
Even with allergies on the rise, just one in four travellers (26%) has been on a flight where an announcement was made requesting that passengers refrain from consuming a food containing an allergen.
But whether they’ve experienced a passenger-wide flight announcement before or not, nine out of 10 travellers say they would refrain from eating any food containing nuts if asked to by the airline.
How would you respond if you asked to refrain from eating nuts on a flight because a fellow passenger was severely allergic?
Aside from a very small minority, people are intrinsically kind. They are prepared to temporarily modify their behaviour if it means keeping someone else safe.
While we know that most allergens are not airborne, the risk of surface contamination is greatly reduced if travellers on flights or trains refrain from consuming any food that could cause an allergic reaction in their fellow passenger.
After all, even the longest international direct flight is just 19 hours - surely we can all #PutTheNutsAway for a few hours!
Help us spread awareness and kindness
We’re on a mission to make it easier, safer and less nerve-wracking for people with allergies to travel. We’ve already put together guidance on how to travel with a food allergy to help those who want practical advice.
Now, we’re taking it a step further. Our campaign asks are pragmatic and reasonable. If every transport provider had a clear, publicly available policy and implemented it consistently across the whole traveller journey, those travelling with allergies would already feel a lot more seen, not to mention safer.
So help us spread the word and encourage empathy. Share our message with others and if you’re ever asked to refrain from eating something on a flight, please do so. It’s only for a few hours, not forever.
One small change from you could help save someone’s life.
#putthenutsaway