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EasyJet bans peanuts on all flights
- pattle 7y agoA good move, it must be quite nerve racking travelling by air with a severe peanut allergy. I was on a flight recently from London to Chicago where they requested that no-one consume any foods they'd brought that contain peanuts. We probably should have been told this at check in as my brother had some cereal bars containing nuts in his bag. Plus they'd only asked in English so I was surprised the announcement wasn't made in other languages too.
- curiousgal 7y agoI don't get this, how does a passenger eating peanuts affect another passenger that's allergic to them?
- Mirioron 7y agoThere are some people that have a very severe peanut allergy and peanut dust could float around in the cabin. If the plane is over an ocean and somebody has a medical emergency then there's nothing you can really do. So it's a better safe than sorry move.
- zaarn 7y agoThere is to my knowledge no scientific evidence that people's allergies can be triggered by "peanut vapor" nor do I know any confirmed stories or experienced someone's allergy being triggered by such "vapor". It's entirely a myth. In fact, a quick google brings up this page: https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel
- Mirioron 7y agoI see that I was wrong. I didn't know it had been tested this thoroughly.
- pattle 7y agoThe air inside a plane gets continually recirculated and some people have such a severe allergy that even the smallest traces can causes a bad reaction.
- TomK32 7y agoWouldn't a face mask help them?
- purerandomness 7y agoYou still need to breathe air, and that has to come from somewhere. Face masks are effectively preventing droplet infections, but probably wouldn't prevent traces of peanut from being inhaled.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoEvidence of claims?
- foxyv 7y agoYes, a simple dusk filter would prevent peanut dust from being inhaled. If it gets on their skin though I don't know how someone normally reacts. May be too small to cause an issue or who knows?
- xaqfox 7y agoYou are mistaken about the recirculation. The air gets replaced fairly quickly due to how they maintain positive cabin pressure.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoSo? Air is constantly refreshed many times per hour and any recirculated air is filtered.
- zaarn 7y agoPeanut dust isn't airborne for any significant amount of time nor does it seem to be capable of causing any reactions even at the dust levels detecting right where someone is eating a peanut: https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel
- Maskawanian 7y agoIt would likely depend on proximity and cross contamination.
- dmitryminkovsky 7y agoWe must put real, practical safety concerns above ideals, so this makes sense. But why isn't there more alarm—or even action—over the fact that foods that were near-universally consumed by people are now increasingly capable of quite literally killing a relatively large part of the population? For example, why is hand sanitizer still widely distributed? When will it end? When all we're capable of consuming is powdered formula? Edit: everyone wondering about hand sanitizer, I was thinking along the lines of the hygiene hypothesis, ie https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12048610_Asthma_and_allergy_in_Russian_and_Norwegian_schoolchildren_Results_from_two_questionnaire-based_studies_in_the_Kola_Peninsula_Russia_and_northern_Norway https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12048610_Asthma_and.... I believe I saw this study on here a few years ago. Edit2: I meant this study https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cea.12527 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cea.12527
- SwiftyBug 7y agoAre you implying that hand sanitizer is the cause of the rise of food allergies?
- gruez 7y agoWell there's the hygiene hypothesis, but then again, it's a hypothesis
- dmitryminkovsky 7y agoA hypothesis it is, but something about this study got me https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cea.12527 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cea.12527
- saagarjha 7y agoAre there people who have severe allergies to ethyl alcohol? I didn’t know this was a thing…
- dmitryminkovsky 7y ago
- protonfish 7y agoGreat, more anti- peanut hysteria https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/10/nut_allergy_hysteria/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/10/nut_allergy_hysteri...
- cletus 7y agoI'm sympathetic on this one. You can't just look at the number of deaths. The thing about nuts is they tend to be in foods small children want to otherwise eat. Reeses, pretzels filled with peanut butter [1], etc. The presence of nuts can also be non-obvious (eg a coworker had severe reaction to a curry IIRC that wasn't labelled as containing nuts. [1] https://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-allergic-reaction/ https://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-all...
- protonfish 7y agoObsessing over a single data point instead of prioritization of dangers to children based on actual risk factors - frequency and level of effects - is the very definition or irrational action.
- MaupitiBlue 7y agoTalk about 1% dictating to the other 99%... If I told EasyJet that I was gluten intolerant, would they ban glutens for me?
- Mirioron 7y agoIf just coming into contact with gluten could kill you, then yes, I believe they would.
- jazoom 7y agohttps://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-allergy/wheat-gluten-allergy https://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-... Gluten can induce anaphylaxis in some people. I guess we just wait now for them to ban all gluten-containing foods?
- Mirioron 7y agoYou don't induce it by breathing in residual dust of gluten though, do you? And again, if you do, then I'm sure the airline would accommodate you.
- pattle 7y agoThe thing is though is people can die if they get an allergic reaction. Is not being able to eat peanuts for 12 hours or so worth someones life?
- Chris_Chambers 7y agoDysgenic freaks of nature are biohazards and should be sterilized to prevent them from passing on their dangerously flawed genes. The fact that they aren’t sterilized means that their deaths are in fact a good thing for humanity as a whole.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>Is not being able to eat peanuts for 12 hours or so worth someones life? No. But seeing decisions being made based on the lowest common denominator to the inconvenience of everyone else (able bodies people are not inconvenienced by wheelchair ramps) is annoying to everyone who is inconvenienced (edit: for small values of everyone) regardless of whether or not it's an objectively good decision. Some people want peanuts and they're pissed they can't get them because of an edge case. I'm not saying it's right but it's human nature.
- aitchnyu 7y agoAre there such patients who live daily life normally but get sick at a whiff of a cracked chocolate? Will they get as sick from walking in a food court or other places in daily life? I can't judge this policy as reasonable or draconian.
- jonlucc 7y agoI'm not saying it is right, but I think the idea is that an emergency on a plane forces an emergency landing, which is very expensive and inconvenient. At a food court, they just block off a section and call the paramedics.
- scbrg 7y agoAvoiding a food court is relatively easy. There are other ways to acquire and consume food. Avoiding airplanes pretty much means you never travel longer than a thousand km or so. That's a fairly big restriction. (also, "a whiff of cracked chocolate" is perhaps not as much of a problem as "someone sitting next to you and chewing nuts, and accidentally throwing some of them in your face if there's some turbulence")
- majewsky 7y ago> Avoiding airplanes pretty much means you never travel longer than a thousand km or so. Trains exist, and in first-world countries they're usually pleasant to use, even if it takes longer than an airplane. But then again, if being in an airplane cabin with a peanut eater is dangerous, then being in a train wagon with one probably is as well.
- notacoward 7y ago> even if it takes longer than an airplane. A lot longer. There's at least a 5x difference between typical plane and train speeds. So a 5-6 hour flight becomes a 25-30 hour train ride. That's a pretty major cost and inconvenience you so blithely dismiss as long as it only affects someone else. Also, please note that it's not that uncommon any more for people to travel over water, and there are no trains there. But I suppose you'd say those people who aren't you should just constrain their choice of job or occupation accordingly. Nothing's a big deal when it's somebody else's problem, right?
- samrolken 7y agoAre there any cases where someone allergic to peanuts has died or had to go to the hospital after being in the presence of peanuts, without eating or even touching them? Is this something that has ever happened? (Even once ever?)
- zaarn 7y agoScience says "very likely not ever once". https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel
- eindiran 7y agoFrom the link: > Investigators concluded that the risk of exposure to peanut on an airplane stems from potentially contaminated surfaces and not from airborne levels. So the issue isn't not having exposure via air, but "not having touched" the peanuts themselves, but interacting with contaminated surfaces.
- nmstoker 7y agoThe problem here is the arbitrariness of the decision - this level of care for their passengers seems almost entirely absent from EasyJet in various other regards, so why this? And there are presumably other passenger risks that they are not responding to with outright bans, so where is the cut-off?
- dccoolgai 7y agoBecause this is easy to put in a press release... actually fixing customer service/safety issues would be more difficult.
- dingaling 7y agoEasyjet does not have 'safety issues'. They have never had a hull loss and to my knowledge they have never had a passenger injury as the result of operations.
- wink 7y agoI'm pretty sure I was given peanuts as the only snack on my last flight in December (iirc not EasyJet). Not saying this is in any way a bad idea, but I'm really wondering if this will be more widespread in the future or if half of the airlines will go out of their way and half of them will do the exact opposite.
- cfj 7y agoThe idea that some people are extraordinarily sensitive to peanuts, to the degree that they can't be in the same room as someone eating a Snickers bar, is bunk. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology states[0]: > There is no evidence to support peanut vapor as a cause of reactions or that peanut dust itself circulates and causes reactions. I am a little surprised to see such uncritical propagation of this myth on HN. [0] https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel https://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/peanut-air-travel
- nathanaldensr 7y agoThank you for the link. Your type of comments are why I love HN. :)
- eindiran 7y agoFrom your link: > Investigators concluded that the risk of exposure to peanut on an airplane stems from potentially contaminated surfaces and not from airborne levels. I've literally had someone spill their food on me on a plane, so direct contact is certainly not out of the question.
- bloak 7y agoThis seems quite moderate compared to some UK primary schools banning all nuts even though several species are growing wild on the school premises.
- bassman9000 7y agoDoug Benson warned about this