NATIONAL CARRIER Cyprus Airways (CY) yesterday defended its decision to throw two holiday-makers off a flight after finding out they were allergic to nuts.
The two Aberdeen teenagers were ordered off a CY plane at Heathrow after one of them asked staff not to distribute free peanuts to passengers as she suffers from a severe nut allergy. Nuts reportedly cause the passenger’s throat to swell and create difficulties with her breathing.
On hearing this, cabin crew told the 17-year-old girls they would have to get off the flight. Their airfare was refunded by CY.
According to the Evening Express, the pair were on their way were to meet friends in Ayia Napa but ended up stranded at Heathrow Airport overnight until they could catch a British Airways flight the next day.
Teary-eyed, the girls had to ask their parents for an extra £450 for new flights. The drama did not end there as they missed their connecting return flight home from Heathrow as a result of the new schedule, and were forced to take a 12-hour bus journey home.
CY spokesman, Kyriacos Kyriacou, said the cabin crew acted correctly in asking the girls to get off the plane as they should have given prior warning of the nut allergy.
“They waited until the last minute to tell us. Can I put someone on a plane who is allergic to something being distributed on the plane? How do we know there isn’t a piece of nut stuck somewhere between two chairs?”
The spokesman said the airline had no problem accommodating for allergies as long as they were given the necessary warning.
“When you buy your ticket, you need to inform us of any problem or disability and we will accommodate for it. In that particular case, the food was already in packages, nuts were on the plane.
“Once the doors closed, we couldn’t guarantee that no one would open a nut packet. It was purely a preventive measure. It’s a serious thing to have an allergy attack on a plane,” he said.
Kyriacou noted the airline had a passenger last month who warned them in advance of his nut allergy.
“We arranged to empty the plane of all nuts. The pilot announced that we had passengers on board with nut allergies, and asked that no one open any nut packets.”
A number of airlines have stopped serving nuts as part of their in-flight service. However, demand for nuts on flights to and from Cyprus remains extremely high, noted Kyriacou.
