10/17/23 –
I was having a lovely time travelling with my grandparents, I had managed all my flights so far with announcements being made to the plane regarding my allergy. I have a very severe nut allergy (anaphylaxis) and I struggle to even be around peanuts. I was boarding a flight with Jetstar from Perth to Melbourne at 12:40am. I informed them about my allergy before the flight.
As I usually do, I told the cabin manager as I boarded, I could immediately see she was going to make an issue out of this. My grandparents sat in their seats, and I was taken to the side. She told me “People had a right to eat peanuts and making an announcement may disturb passengers who have anxiety flying”. Bear in mind they make announcements anyway on a flight.
I was then told that I am unfit to fly and I will need a doctor’s note (I was not told when informing them previously about my allergy.) I also flew with them from Bali to Perth and they made an announcement for me with no issue. She then after talking to the captain and not allowing me to speak to him, decided that I was not allowed to board the flight. At this point I am in tears as I have never been treated so badly by an airline before. My grandparents must also get off the flight as they don’t want to leave me alone, we were made to wait 8 hours in the airport in the middle of the night with no accommodation provided, just a traumatic experience.
I then boarded the flight at 8am to almost be kicked off again, and they make a whole show of calling a doctor to sign off on me flying telling me I am holding up the flight. They said I should’ve done this while waiting in the airport from 12am-8am. Bearing in mind I was never told to do this, and have never needed a doctors letter for anything to do with my allergy par carrying epi pens. After all that they would only tell the row behind me and I wore a mask and had my hood up the entire flight fearful. I had to massively downplay my allergy and just hope I would be okay.
I highly recommend NOT flying with this airline, and I hope they update their policies to be less discriminatory to people with severe allergies. I will not be returning to this airline anytime soon.
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