Bringing Food On Board

We're flying Delta for the first time in a few weeks to SXM. Flying Comfort Class, so we know beverages are included. Can we bring sandwiches on board, and do they have to be purchased at the airport, or can they come from home? JB allows it, just wasn't sure about Delta. Thanks!!

Whatever airline you use, you can bring on food from anywhere to consume onboard. The only restriction is that you cannot bring some things, like fruit, for instance, back INTO the US from outside the country.

Thanks Carol! I knew about the fruit thing, just wasn't sure about Delta's restrictions.

Some airlines will impose a peanut restriction at boarding if a passenger requests it beforehand. Been on a flight where that happened.

Huh. Never seen that. I don't understand, someone can be so allergic to peanuts that they can't even be in close proximity to them? That's weird.

I got that one beat. We go to Boston Red Sox games...maybe 5-7/season and either sit in the open air (no roof) roof boxes or RF roof standing room.

One season they made that whole area (8 or 9 sections plus standing room) a peanut free zone. No announcement anywhere prior to that section and, of course, this was the ONLY time the my better half decided to invest in an overpriced bag of in the shell peanuts. They were promptly taken from us when we attempted to go to our seats.

That lasted one season.

I thought maybe a sign when the nuts are sold would have been appropriate but they then might sell less product.
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Let me assure you the peanut thing is real. I've been to the emergency dept. numerous times because of accidental peanut exposure. This is a matter of life and death for some of us. It's not a trivial matter. Fortunately, package marking is much better now and the food service industry is taking action to prevent inadvertent contamination. Sorry for your inconvenience.

Most free snacks on flights are peanut free except for the warm nuts in First Class. Hope they never do away with those along with those fresh warm cookies. Oh my. May can't come fast enough.

I was not questioning whether it was real or not...I just wanted to know about the seat restrictions either BEFORE I bought the tickets or BEFORE I bought my peanuts.

40 years of being an Emergency Department/Trauma RN got me plenty of first hand exposure to the seriousness of certain food allergies.

Southwest gives ONLY free peanuts and pretzels on flights but they will not give them out if someone alerts them of their allergy. Back to the original question..there is no way (other than smell) that the airline would know what you brought on board for your snack. Probably a good idea not to make it a PB & J sandwich

Better PB&J than India food. It permeates the entire plane.

Must be the curry? It tastes as strong as it smells.

Every airline that I've every flown on allows people to bring food on board. As a courtesy to others, "fragrant" foods should be avoided.

When flying internationally to the US, plan to eat whatever you bring with you while you're on the flight into the US. Don't plan to save half for later. Skippy the Wonder Beagle, the dog which you may see at Baggage Claim or other areas, is an Agriculture Dog, not a DEA Dog. Skippy is looking for food - veggies, meats (sounds like sandwiches!), fruits, etc. in checked and carryon luggage.

Skippy the wonder beagle has often been interested in our suitcase when we have brought back a wheel of gouda. Generally the guy will ask us if we have food in our suitcase and when we say 'yes a BIG wheel of gouda', he says ok and moves on! Never had to open the suitcase.

Bring what you want - Delta has no restrictions. EC gets you a little more leg room, free drinks, and an "enhanced" snack basket that is passed two or three times instead of once, and you can take more than 1 snack. "Enhanced" means bananas, sun chips, different cookies, potato chips are added instead of the basic Bischoff cookies, peanuts & pretzels. Plus you get on earlier so you always have overhead space. We book EC for the leg room - nothing else.

Carol,

'Skippy,' a cute little beagle, got me at JFK one time, too.

I wasn't aware John hadn't disposed of his unfinished piece of RB grinder on the plane. He left me to wait at the baggage carousel for our luggage while he went in search of the rest rooms.

When the dog got to me and wouldn't leave my side, the handler asked me if I had any food items, and I unwittingly said no. John rescued me and pulled out the foil wrapped half sandwich and all was fine but I was a bit nervous for a minute or two. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

So on our Delta flight back home, they did not give out any peanuts because one person had an allergy. Everybody else could have brought them on the plane themselves anyway. Not sure of the reasoning here.
Airline was probably terrified of a lawsuit like everyone else in the states.

Reminds me of the first time we flew after 911. We have a mini cooler that we generally put a few steaks, some chicken, etc., in. This particular one had a pocket on the side of it. Pre 911 we routinely kept a steak knife in that pocket, generally to use when we went to the beach with a hunk of cheese. Well, you guessed it, we forgot that knife was in there, and the TSA guys at Dulles were NOT amused at all. We almost missed our outbound flight, in some part because we unwittingly denied that we had a knife in there, having forgotten it was there.. We made it to our flight, but just barely..

Carol, same thing happened to my hairdresser but she said she was fined $500. You got away good!

When we travel in USA we fly out with a square cooler that keeps cold 36 hours. Knowing that TSA is sure to check, we put a thin carry gym type bag at the bottom then a garbage bag filled with our underwear socks etc.

Upon arrival in a state we rent a car move garbage bag into the stored gym bag stop at Walmart buy water, cheese, etc for the road and fill that cooler.

We didn't even think about a fine. We were worried that we were going to miss our flight. That was our first concern. I guess they ultimately believed us that we didn't remember the knife was there..

wow...you actually look forward to the things we decline...different strokes, yada, yada...

Shouldn't be that much of a shock. If most people didn't enjoy that First Class perk they would do away with it. I for one like it.