Crew made a special request over the PA of travellers to not eat or open any packages containing nuts on the plane.
She was extremely grateful for the extra lengths and said that other passengers “were lovely”.
However, she said this was completely pointless after she was handed a menu “which, to my horror included a prawn with cashew nut meal”.
She brought this to the attention of the crew, who said that the issue would be rectified and the potentially lethal meals jettisoned.
Moments later members of the airport ground staff came aboard the plane to explain that the catering could not be replaced and, instead, they would have to leave the plane.
“They were so upset and they were lovely… I do not know whose decision this was to remove a family [instead of] a little carton of food,” she told the Daily Mail.
The family had spent £15,500 on the package holiday, via British Airways subsidiary BA Holidays, to celebrate her father’s recent bypass operation.
Instead they were put on to a replacement flight a day later, costing them a day of their holiday in the UAE. A The family who had been booked into premium economy on the first flight, were then spread throughout the cabin. Her children and her husband were moved into economy class seats.
Her elderly parents had been upgraded to business class for the flight to Dubai.
“It was just the most traumatic, awful, horrendous experience,” said Smith, who vowed never to travel with the airline again.
A media statement from the airline said that the passenger’s son was a top priority and that it had been the family who “elected not to travel” on that flight.
“The safety and welfare of our customers is always our priority, and that’s why on every flight we operate we follow the recommendations of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for allergen-sensitive passengers,” read a British Airways statement.
“We clearly state in our published policy, and all correspondence with customers, that we can never guarantee an allergen-free cabin environment. Our crews work hard to limit any risk by allowing customers to board early to carry out additional cleansing, making allergy announcements to all passengers and restricting the serving of peanuts.
“In this case, our teams worked hard to find solutions to the issues raised once the customers elected not to travel that day, offering overnight hotel accommodation, the same flight the following day and extending the family’s holiday free of charge.”
The airline’s website warns passengers with allergies that allergen-free cabins cannot be guaranteed, but they work to stop other passengers from bringing their own food on board.
“Meals containing tree nuts may continue to be served throughout the aircraft and tree-nut-based snacks may also continue to be served in other cabins of travel depending on the aircraft type,” reads the FAQs.
In 2016, a 15-year-old girl died following a severe anaphylactic reaction to a sandwich aboard a British Airways plane.
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who had severe food allergies, fell gravely ill after eating a takeaway Pret a Manger sandwich she had brought aboard the plane to Nice and could not be revived.
