TOP PAGE>Learning Report>Report of taking a gluten-free meal on the airplane

What is an in-flight antiallergic meal?

A member of us visited Singapore for a week with a school training program during the summer vacation period of 2017.
Of course he would ride an airplane to go to Singapore. On an International flights supply in-flight meals expect LCC and a part of some airlines.

In fact, some in-flight meals response allergies. All Nippon Airways (ANA) which he rode this time, has "some antiallergic meal menus" in special in-flight meals such as vegetarian, seafood, halal food and so on. If you make a reservation in advance,antiallergic meal menus can eat even if you don’t have allergy when they order in advance.

While I was staying in Singapore, I remembered about antiallergic meals and I accessed to ANA’s official website. It said that they are preparing three antiallergic meal menus such as;

“7 items antiallergic meal”(excludes 7 specific raw materials)
“27 items antiallergic meal”(excludes 7 specific raw materials and 20 recommend raw materials)
"27 items allergen corresponding infant food" (infant food version)

They are in-flight meals that prevent contamination of allergens completely and made by a supplier specializing in food allergies not an airline factory.
You can order antiallergic meals only by phone up to the flight departure and you can book this meal up to 96 hours before departure. [As of August 2017 · From November 2017 ※ See additional note]

I wanted to try to eat an in-flight antiallergic meal, but I couldn’t because it was above 96 hours ago when I realized. Instead, I tried eating a gluten free meal. It corresponds to people who is gluten intolerance ( it is different from wheat allergy) common to Westerners and is not included in the item of antiallergic meals but special in-flight meals.
Moreover, this meal can also be applied on the internet and can be ordered more easily than usual allergen compatible food.

December 25, 2017 ※ Additional note
In December, when I boarded the all Nippon Airlines domestic flight, the in-flight magazine said, "The deadline for application of allergen-compatible food from November 2017 is 24 hours before flight departure from Japan departure flight and 48 hours before flight arrival to Japan."
I felt that I could afford to apply period and became and convenient. Even people with allergies have become very easy to use airplanes.

Information of my flight

Departing September 1st
NH844
from Singapore （SINGAPORE/SIN（22:15）） to Haneda airport（TOKYO/HND）

From board to dinner (first meal)

After boarding, CA sticked a seal as shown in the picture. I think GFML stands for Gluten-free Meal. According to ANA’s official website, it seems that special abbreviations for other ANA special in-flight meals are give special abbreviations for each in-flight meal.

After a while after the take-off, the tray service (dinner and light food) started. The gluten free meal was brought first. A chile meal I asked before also came earlier, so it seems that such correspondence has become correspondence with uniform special food catering.
The in-flight meal was as shown in the picture. It was water, wet towel and puff with smoked salmon, lettuce and sauce sandwiched. It was pretty delicious.

Incidentally, ordinary in-flight meals were potatoes, chips and muffins. Usually, a muffin is made from wheat, and there is an contamination warning indication that potato chips is made of the same equipment as muffins made.

Breakfast (second meal)

My flight was late night flight that arrives at Tokyo in the morning, so I had breakfast before it’s arrival. This time it supplied a gluten free meal, differs from ordinary in-flight meal.

It was mushrooms, green beans, boiled egg whites boiled with tomato sauce, puffs, margarine, salad with chicken breast tender( chicken breast tender, mizuna, tomato, dressing), melon and soy milk.

An ordinary in-flight meal supplied Udon, soft roll, butter, fruit, yogurt, "Mushroom frittata with pork sausage". By comparison between it and gluten free meals, you can see that there are bread and Udon made from wheat. And the contamination warning is displayed on the bottom of the menu list.

Discussion and impressions

The most interesting thing is that every gluten free meal has a display of “GFML” and is distinguished from ordinary in-flight meals completely.
Especially, international airplanes fly a long time. In the flights,if a person who ordered allergy-friendly meal or gluten-supplement meal mistakenly has other things and an allergen reaction has occurred, it will be very dangerous.
If you happen to have an anaphylactic shock in an airplane and you are nearly death, in some cases it is necessary to emergency landing.
Although it is best to help the lives of the affected person, but it will great influence on other passengers. I have an experience that my flight made an emergency landing due to a sudden ill person. At that time, a delay of several hours occurred due to reasons to add fuel on the way, giving passengers various influences.
And in case of an international flight, because it flies on the Pacific Ocean and a region where sufficient treatment environment, it is sometimes difficult to make an emergency landing.
For the above reasons, you can see that it is very important not to cause an allergic reaction inside the airplane. Based on that, I was impressed that the handling of food allergies in the cabin is solid. (High 2 · F)