Sitting with her husband and four children on a Southwest Airlines flight this past March, Chelsia Calvert encountered many mothers’ worst nightmare.
As her family slept beside her, tired from attending a family wedding in South Carolina, she watched as flight attendants passed out bags of peanuts to fellow passengers in the rows ahead of her. Minutes later, her then-9-year-old son Christian began breaking out in hives.
Calvert’s son has life-threatening allergies to peanuts and tree nuts, as well as a less severe allergy to shellfish. Prior to boarding her flight from Atlanta to Houston, Calvert had taken every step possible to protect her son: She made note of his allergy when booking her tickets, made follow-up calls to remind Southwest LUV, -1.32%[1] of his allergy, and informed the on-ground and in-flight crew when she arrived at the airport.
“They still made the mistake of handing out peanuts,” Calvert said. “It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced.”
Soon after Christian began reacting, Calvert found herself using an EpiPen, the device which administers epinephrine to reduce the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction. It was the first time she had needed to use the EpiPen on her son since she first discovered how severe Christian’s allergy was when he was two years old.
Photo courtesy of Chelsia Calvert
Though he survived the incident, Christian has since developed a fear of traveling by plane. When the time came to make the annual visit to family in Atlanta this summer, the Calverts opted for a 12-hour drive instead of flying. “He doesn’t want to come close to a plane,” Calvert said of her son. “He’s dealing with high anxiety.”
Thanks to a new policy change, other families with peanut allergies are far less likely to go through what the Calverts endured. Southwest Airlines announced Monday that beginning Aug. 1 it will no longer serve peanuts on any of its flights.
“Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where all customers — including those with peanut-related allergies — feel safe and welcome on every Southwest flight,” the company said in a statement.
The move was met with celebration by food-allergy advocates who have long been pushing for airlines to adopt policies that protect passengers with severe allergies. Indeed, Southwest Airlines was the first to begin serving peanuts on its flights back in 1970, according to the National Peanut Board.[2]
“It’s forward-thinking of them,” said Lianne Mandelbaum, founder of the food-allergy advocacy website No Nut Traveler[3]. “This is a step in the right direction, but it’s...