International Flights with Allergies: Gluten Free

I have had a number of questions asked of me lately on Gluten Free travel, so I thought that would be an appropriate way to begin this blog. As an Ethnomusicologist/EthnoDoxologist/Music Educator, I tend to travel overseas quite a bit. Also, I have celiac, which means that my body cannot digest the protein in Wheat, Barley, and Rye (American Oats are usually contaminated with wheat too) - necessitating a Gluten Free diet. While this doesn't pose an immense immediate threat as would a peanut allergy (requiring an epi-pen, etc), eating contaminated food would leave me ill for the next two weeks or so. So it's not something that I want to just “hope” works out.

There is almost no information online about gluten free international air travel, so I have had to figure this out as I go. Some of the experiences have been bad, but most have been good – though it did take a good deal of diligence on my part.

A few preliminary tips: these suggestions/narratives/etc. are based entirely on my experiences on particular airlines at particular periods of time – policies change, recipes change, and attitudes change. My advice is to take these suggestions with a grain of salt if need be, being encouraged that there are indeed some Gluten Free options out there. That being said, in your carry-on, I ABSOLUTELY recommend you take GF Larabars, Trail Mix, Cookies/Crackers, etc. Anything that is sealed, not produce, and not liquid, can be taken on with you, so it’s always best to stock up just in case. People sometimes fast for a day, so if worse comes to worse you could make it from NY to Japan on a few snack bars & a lot of juice. This blog post, of course, is geared to help you have a better dining experience than that, but definitely bring backups just in case. [Also good to know: there may be GF meals; there most likely will NOT be GF snacks as most airplanes do not carry peanuts anymore – so Larabars, Trail Mix, and the like are good to take anyways].

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Beginning with the good: the need/desire for gluten free meals has been increasingly made public in the past few years, so many airlines do offer gluten free meals upon request! The quality is different from company to company – basically, the Asian airlines have tended to be fantastic, the European airlines decent, and the American airlines….well, they’re trying (some of them).

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Ensuring you’ll have a GF option, make sure to follow EACH of these steps [unfortunately, as asinine as checking and re-checking may seem, leaving any one of them out could very well mean no meal for you]:

1) First, check with the airline (whether via phone, website, email, etc) to see if Gluten Free meals are even available. You may need to literally spell it for them (G-L-U-T-E-N), but USUALLY most do have them for international flights **Note: flying from the US to the Caribbean is NOT considered by airlines as International but Domestic from North America, so they may not have GF meals available…see below regarding my trip to Haiti.

2) When booking the ticket, specify Gluten Free meal (whether booking through an agent, via phone, or via internet).

3) Regardless of receiving a confirmation of it in writing/verbally upon booking the ticket, call the airline no less than 48 hours in advance to make sure they have “Special Meal Request – Gluten Free” written in their system (sometimes they catch a mistake that kept it from showing up in the system, and 48 hours is the “official” cut off time for ensuring a special meal request).

4) When you’re checking in at the airport, ask the Ticket Agent if your special meal request is listed (if not, they’re poised to catch it quickly enough to have one sent to the gate).

5) When you get to the gate, check with that ticket agent as well. This is the last person who can check on this for you before you board, and I have had them find mistakes/mis-routed meals!

6) When you get on to the airplane, after sitting down but before takeoff [at a time when the flight attendants are not overly busy], it helps to head back to one of them, introduce yourself and your seat number, and that you have a gluten free meal coming for you…that you just wanted to touch base so that they could put a face to the meal, thanking them for having it available, etc. It helps ensure that it’s delivered to you…usually they’ll bring these out a few minutes before everyone else’s, and sometimes they do mistakenly get given to the wrong person. Obviously you don’t to say that to the flight attendant, but mistakes happen. We’ve found that introducing ourselves like this helps to ensure it does get to the right person.

7) When you are eating, still be on the lookout for non-GF items. The Main portion of the meal – the chicken/fish/meat/etc definitely WILL be fine if the meal is listed as GF. Occasionally the rest of the tray - crackers, cookies, etc., will be added in by the staff as they add them to each meal. Usually not, but occasionally. The best way to be sure if the dessert/roll/etc is in fact Gluten Free: look at a non-GF lunch nearby. Usually anything that’s substituted out will look quite different.

8) Bring backups, just in case (occasionally [British/US airlines] Rice Crispies have been given to me as “the Gluten Free breakfast” while everyone else has eggs – my wife in these cases gives me her extra fruit).

9) And most important: Be incredibly polite, thankful, generous, soft-spoken, etc, in ALL of this – getting a GF meal is a service that is relatively new; most of the people you’ll be talking to have dealt with their fair share of cranky, upset, complaining people before you even woke up, and people who ask for special requests don’t tend to be the most easy to please people; break the mold! A little grace, courtesy, and friendliness really can make their day (and in turn ensure that you have the best possible flight).

A few airline-specific stories, both good and bad:

• ~My first GF overseas experience was flying to Sri Lanka via England using Sri Lankan airways. This meant British Airways from NY-London, and Sri Lankan Air from London-Sri Lanka. This was when I had my first surprise: a bagged roll, labeled gluten free, with “de-glutened wheat starch.” This took me aback – enough so that I pocketed the roll until I could access internet. As it turns out, it IS fully gluten free, utilizing a process that we don’t use in the US. So these ARE safe to eat if you get them.

• -Many South Asian airline meals ARE gluten free anyways if you leave out the Indian bread (nan), so they’re REALLY easy to adapt. Couple that with the fact that many in Asia need special diets due to religious restrictions, and you’ll find that you’re one among many on the flight requesting a special meal (Halal for Muslim, Kosher for Jew, Vegetarian for Hindu, which could include or not include Eggs and Dairy – you’ll find meal options like “Vegetarian, Lacto-Vegetarian, Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian,” etc).

• The best meals by far have been on Japan Airways (going over the Pacific), KLM (through Amsterdam), and, surprisingly enough – the Indian Airlines (surprising for travelers who know that traveling Air India and Indian Airways is generally to be avoided b/c of crowdedness, lack of modern plane/seats, infamous delays, etc). Their meals, though, are good! Most of the American companies DO have a gluten free meal option – usually a piece of chilled salmon as one meal, and a suspiciously familiar piece of hot salmon in marinara sauce for the other meal.

• There have been times I’ve been given somebody else’s meal and somebody else given mine – thankfully we’ve noticed & figured it out before either of us ate the other’s! KLM has a cool little thing that they do: If you have a special meal, they come around & put a different colored cloth/paper behind your head on the seat, so that if you’re asleep they will remember that you’re something different for them to remember about – and yet it’s not something that I would have noticed had I not needed a special meal.

• The biggest trouble that I’ve had: Delta, flying to Haiti/Dominican Republic after the earthquake last year. Delta recently [read: in the past couple’a years] has done away with Gluten Free meals for Domestic flights. They define domestic as “within North America,” which includes Haiti. This was one of the few times I’ve used a travel agent; he assured me that he specified Gluten Free. I called the airline a few days beforehand, and they said that they definitely have note of my Gluten Free meal request. Having had luck the previous few times, and having “Gluten Free Meal Request” printed on my invoice, I was lax & didn’t do my check-in follow up. Got onto the plane to find out that no, they don’t do Gluten Free meals on this flight as it’s considered domestic (first person to have said that to me). Thankfully, as I was going to Haiti post-earthquake, I had MANY Larabars/etc with me for quick, easy, & safe meals, so I wound up eating those on the flight there & back (sadly, admittedly, seething at Delta the whole time).

One final thing to be aware of: on almost every flight, the flight attendants offer the same snacks to everyone, regardless of allergy, etc. Just be aware of this (and cognizant of the fact that they obviously can’t remember every detail about every person who flies on their plane; I am just one of the 150 in their section…again, graciously declining will go a lot further than explaining the Gluten Free diet at this point [unless they ask of course].

I hope this may be an encouragement to you, one that helps make your flying experience a better one. Some people avoid travel altogether having allergies & not knowing what they can or can’t take with them or expect to eat, so I hope this helps to ease your fears as well as provide some tips to make sure you can eat without being “glutenated.”