Airline staff ‘repeatedly ignored’ student’s allergy warning

Airline staff ‘repeatedly ignored’ student’s allergy warning

19 June 2019

A KILCOO woman is thankful to be alive after an airline “repeatedly ignored” her warning she had a severe nut allergy. 

Shauna McClelland (21), last week boarded a flight for a girls’ trip to Berlin, which she says could easily have turned out to be fatal after the airline didn’t listen to her allergy warnings. 

The past pupil of St Malachy’s High School, Castlewellan, suffers from an ‘airborne’ nut allergy, which can be triggered by 11 different types of nuts. 

Now studying at Queen’s University Belfast, Shauna lives with the risk that her body could go into anaphylactic shock — a sudden and severe reaction that occurs within minutes of exposure to nuts. 

After warning the Ryanair flight attendants she was horrified when she spotted another passenger eating a bag of nuts long after take off.

She said: “As the flight proceeded, I went down to speak to a friend when I noticed the gentleman in front was eating nuts. I freaked out. 

“I went to the front of the plane and informed the staff. Initially, I thought it was the passenger who hadn’t listened to the announcement. But no, it was the staff member who had not heeded the warnings and sold nuts to passengers.

“If I didn’t notice this, it could have had a fatal end to my holiday. I can’t believe after the recent deaths on planes relating to nuts that Ryanair could show so much negligence towards their passengers.

“Luckily for me the outcome was good but it could easily have been fatal and I would never want someone’s stupidity to put another life in danger.”

She continued: “I had to tell the staff three times about my allergy on the out-bound flight before they made an announcement.

“On the return flight the same thing happened. I had to inform three different members of staff and still they made no announcement. After being on the plane 20 minutes I asked again would they make an announcement, which they finally did.”

A spokesman for Ryanair said: “Customers with nut allergies are asked to inform cabin crew when boarding the flight and a public address is then made informing other customers and advising that no products containing nuts will be sold onboard.

“While other customers are asked not to open peanut products on board, Ryanair cannot guarantee a peanut-free aircraft.”