Last June, my husband & I took our 2 boys ages 12 & 16 to Cleveland to visit my brother. Our 12 year old has potentially fatal allergies to all dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, avocado, all gourds, all uncooked veggies, some cooked veggies, all fruit & soy milk. Just the smell of a peanut will likely trigger an anaphylactic attack, it’s happened before. We chose Delta because they would let us pre board & clean the seats & they would make an announcement. They were very accommodating.
We boarded Delta in the morning from LAX, and sat on the tar mat for over an hour due to mechanical issue. They then called our names to exit the plane because they had to reroute our flight from Atlanta to Dallas and informed us that they would put us on a Delta flight to Dallas. Then from Dallas to Cleveland on an American Airlines (AA) flight. I quickly responded, that we couldn’t fly AA because they serve nuts, heated nuts. I let them know our situation . They made some calls and assured me that AA would not serve any nuts on our flight.
At that point, I agreed to the plan & reminded them about the severity of my son’s allergies. They reassured me that everything would be fine. We boarded another Delta flight going to Dallas, which went well. We landed in Dallas & there was a 5-6 hour layover for our AA flight to Cleveland that would leave Dallas @12am. We waited around & continually tried to talk to AA employees at the ticket counter. We informed them of our medical issues and how we needed to pre board to clean the seats. I repeatedly asked them to verify that they would not be serving nuts & they said, “You need to speak to the flight attendants themselves”.
Therefore, we waited until the plane arrived to the gate. We finally got to pre board. As we walked up to the plane there was a male flight attendant, a female flight attendant & I believe a pilot standing there. We spoke to the male attendant and told him that, “We were reassured by Delta, that you AA would be not be serving nuts on this flight due to my sons severe allergies” . He then said in a snide way, “We served nuts 5 hours ago & we will be serving them tonight.” I started to cry and he then callously said, “If you are not boarding the plane, then move over to the side cause your blocking the way.”
We walked back into the airport in tears, we were outraged and humiliated! I requested to speak to the manager and/or supervisor. Two kind people approached us & heard our story, and said that they could put us on a Delta flight at 6am in the morning. By that time, it was already after midnight. We ended up staying on the cold airport floor on top of our luggage. I was livid, I was in tears, and people can be so rude. There are so many uneducated people in this world. This is a legitimate medical condition. I have seen my child react to food, this is no joke.
So at 6am, we boarded our flight to Cleveland. Delta was very accommodating. . Note our 5-6 hr. flight took about 36 hrs. When we arrived back home, I wrote Delta a letter about our story, they compensated us a small amount each. American Airlines wrote a letter back stating that they were sorry to hear & they couldn’t compensate us at all but thanks for the heads up about making us more aware.
I will never ever fly AA never!
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