So you have a peanut allergy. So you decide to travel with the family to somewhere cool. So you sit down and the flight attendants hand out a pack of peanuts to everyone on the plane. So you grab the EpiPen and hold onto it for the duration of the flight.

Keep in mind that this is only one person’s experience, but I was amazed yesterday about the service we got from Southwest Airlines. We let them know ahead of time that one of us traveling has a severe peanut allergy. We get to the gate and they provided a really friendly staff member who would pre-board with us and help us to prepare the area. When we were up in the air, the flight attendant on the microphone announced that there were people on-board with a peanut allergy and they would therefore be serving pretzels. There was one old timer who then stood up and said, “I chose Southwest Airlines because I wanted the peanuts! I’m not even going anywhere! I just fly from place to place for the peanuts!” The flight attendant then announced that they would have packets of peanuts available in a basket as we all leave if people really wanted them. The old timer was satisfied.

I just thought that the experience was really cool. With the rising rate of peanut allergies, I can only imagine that this is going to be more common. The main reason that I am writing about this is the fact that they were all so friendly about it and didn’t at all make us feel like we were inconveniencing them. So thank you, Southwest Airlines.

On a side note, the pretzels did say that they were processed in a facility that also processes peanuts so don’t eat those.

Image from Flickr user Josh Hallett. Creative Common License