We must pass out the nuts!

We bring our own food to stay safe. Unfortunately, now when you are seated in economy plus, they have begun serving meals and snacks. The meal we avoided and we were having a great flight. But, 50 minutes before we landed the flight attendants began passing out Kind Bars. For anyone who has never seen one, they are made up of tree nuts.

I very kindly alerted the flight attendant that my son was anaphylactic to tree nuts. I asked if he could please not serve them to the people sitting in the row in front and behind him. He refused. He continued to pass them out while I begged him not to. I let him know my son’s allergy is potentially fatal. He has had anaphylaxis after being in contact with a tree nut in the past. I hit the call button for a flight attendant so I could ask for help.

The flight attendant came back to my seat and argued with me without allowing me to speak to anyone else. His explanation was that this was not a peanut free flight. I agreed with him and asked him why he couldn’t give people the option for a different snack that was not nuts or let them know that there was a person with a serious allergy and give them the choice to take it. He angrily fought with me until he asked me if I wanted him to take the Kind bars away from the other passengers.

At that point, they were opened and being eaten. I sat crying in my seat for the remainder of my flight holding my sons epi pens and praying that nothing would happen. My three children were scared and upset. I realize that we have no rights at this point in time. This should not be the case. United should be ashamed that their employee was intimidating, rude and unfortunately without empathy or understanding of food allergies and the dangers they present. We have been flying as a family since my son was diagnosed with severe food allergies when he was six months old, he is fourteen now and have never encountered a flight attendant who so happily passed out the nuts.