Pretoria Drever booked a two-night trip to Amsterdam on October 25th to celebrate her fiancé, Rhonan Kelly’s 25th birthday, as well as their recent engagement.
After the 22-year-old informed KLM about their nut allergy via an online form, and arriving two hours early to Edinburgh Airport to tell staff about their condition, the team on board refused to stop serving the items.
Couple with severe nut allergy ‘forced off’ flight
When this happened, the pair said they felt “backed into a corner” after being allegedly given the choice to either exit the plane or take their chances on board.
Pretoria, who has an airbourne allergy to nuts, said they were left “humiliated” and “gutted” after missing out on their £700 trip.
In one video clip, a staff member is heard saying: “We’re handing out food because people paid for a service and we’re not going to take that away from them”.
Rhonan then angrily responds: “That’s shocking, every other airline does it for us”.
Believing they “probably would’ve died” if they stayed on the flight, the pair left and have vowed never to use the airline again.
They also hope to see a complete nut ban on planes in the future.
Discussing the alleged incident, KLM said they “regret” that Rhonan and Pretoria felt they had no choice but to leave the aircraft and that they “understand their disappointment”.
Rhonan, from Bellshill in Scotland, said: “I’ve never felt so discriminated against in all my life.
“I honestly believe if we took off on that flight and they served the nuts, they’d have taken an emergency landing in London, or we’d have probably died on the flight.
“When we book a holiday, we always double-check with the airline [about our allergies].
“We asked if they’d put an announcement out to ask passengers not to open anything if they do have nuts in them, and if they could not sell nuts on the plane.
“Even the menu for that day was meant to be a cookie, but when we got on the plane, it was a banana loaf with almonds and nuts on it.
“The manager on the plane was saying, ‘we’re not going to stop selling [nut products]. We spoke to KLM Amsterdam and they’ve told us to go ahead with selling the nut products, and they can’t put an announcement out’.
“They said if we don’t like it, we have to basically not fly. They also said they were willing to take the chance if we wanted to stay on the plane as well because they had EpiPens.
“But an EpiPen is only meant to put adrenaline in your body until an ambulance comes so that’s not the answer when you’re in the sky.
“They said if we weren’t happy with them selling nuts and didn’t like the idea because there were tons of people on board, 190 of them and two of us, we had to get off the plane.
“I was angry but it was very embarrassing. I felt as if I was backed into a corner because no matter what we said or did, we knew we weren’t going to win.
“The pilot said that basically they need to carry out a service for what everybody’s paid for, but I paid for it as well. I feel quite disgusted that an airline would do something like that.”
Car insurer Pretoria admitted she could go into anaphylactic shock within just two minutes of nut exposure.
Recommended Reading:
A KLM spokesman said: “We are sorry to hear about the experience Mr. Kelly and Ms. Drever had prior to their flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam.
“We understand how serious nut allergies can be and how distressing this situation must have been for them.
“When a passenger informs our crew about a nut allergy, we can make an onboard announcement kindly requesting fellow passengers to keep nut-containing products sealed for the duration of the flight.
“However, we cannot control or prohibit other passengers from consuming products that may contain nuts during the flight.
“While we do our utmost to support passengers with allergies, we unfortunately cannot guarantee a nut-free environment on board.”
