The government announced today that it may ban peanuts on flights. The reasoning? Some folks with severe peanut allergies are ‘afraid to fly’ because of the risk posed by peanuts on board.
This is sort of like saying you’re going to outlaw bad movies because some people might be offended. (Please note, studies have shown few or no life-threatening episodes in the air due to ‘second-hand’ peanut exposure.)
This was intriguing to me because of my own allergies. I’m allergic to people with poor manners, overhead bin hogs, and snotty flight attendants, but no one’s seen fit to ban those.
Seriously, though, I am allergic to certain perfumes and onions. I’ve never fully figured out the triggers but some scents, and especially those on overload, can cause sneezing, itching, and a rash. Those applied in vat-like quantities can cause me to have trouble breathing. Yet, even when seated next to someone doused in Chanel No. 5, I have never complained, let alone lobbied for scent censorship.
Onions are a more troubling problem. I’m deathly allergic to those, and can suffer life-threatening symptoms either through ingestion or, if the smell is powerful enough, ambient inhaling. Yet no one has proposed that a passenger give up his “cheesesteak wit’” because of my vulnerabilties.
That leads us finally to the specter of the US government as everyone’s “Mommy,” the person who protects you, and also tells you what you’re not allowed to do. Why? Not because it’s rational or even fair, but because they ‘said so.’ But the more important point is, where do we draw the line? It’s disturbing that the DOT has already begun to refer to the allergy as a ‘disability’ because there are a lot of health conditions that are not generally considered ‘disabilities’ that could open the door for. There are also plenty of reasons people are afraid to fly – are we going to regulate conditions to mitigate all of them? Will planes be forced to fly at lower altitudes for those afraid of heights? Will there be a sky patio for those afraid of enclosed places?
The Transportation Department has proposed to do this before, and got a big slap down from Congress, which threatened to cut its budget. (The state of Georgia collectively fainted). Congress was presumably reacting to the huge peanut producer’s lobby which is opposed to the restrictions. I’m guessing Southwest, with its “Peanuts for Fares” campaign would be a little shell-shocked too. (The carrier has said, though, that it will comply with any restrictions and can easily switch to another snack option.)
I, for one, enjoy that little foil wrapped package and don’t want to give up the privilege (although Southwest is a hold-out, most other US airline have voluntarily given up serving the legumes). The options being studied include banning the snack outright, creating ‘peanut-free’ zones, or requiring airlines to make a particular flight ‘peanut-free’ if a passenger requests it. However, none of these choices would result in a totally risk-free environment. That’s because the DOT can only regulate airline behavior and not passenger behavior. Fellow travelers could still be packing a concealed weapon in the form of their own carry-on sandwiches and tidbits. And that’s why this proposed regulation would be useless.
