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Allergies to peanuts, shellfish, dogs, cats and other triggers haven’t stopped 31-year-old Allie Bahn, a fourth-grade teacher and blogger from Boston, from living in Italy for three years and in Australia for seven months. She keeps medication and sanitary wipes handy. Still, she’s had mystery attacks while traveling, including a severe one last fall that forced her to flee a hotel in the middle of the night. Consequently, she prefers renting apartments, as she can interview the owners, and calls airlines in advance to determine her risk.
“I recently flew American Airlines and they let me pre-board so I could use those wipes,” she said.
Preparedness allows Ms. Bahn, who is among more than 50 million Americans with allergies, to manage environmental threats, including the growing number of animals inhabiting the travel world from airplanes to hotels and that in some cases are pitting animal advocates against the allergy afflicted.
Passionate debate on the topic was ignited recently by an incident involving a 7-year-old boy who boarded an Allegiant Air flight in Bellingham, Wash., with his parents only to discover that he was allergic when seated near a service dog. The episode caused a 90-minute flight delay before the family was asked to deplane (making matters worse, some passengers reportedly cheered and the family wasn’t able to get home for two days).
About 10 percent of the United States population suffers from pet allergies, according to Dr. Stephen Tilles, a Seattle-based allergist and president-elect of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Symptoms run from itchy eyes, runny nose and sneezing to more severe asthma symptoms including chest tightening, shortness of breath and wheezing, and hives.
Cats, he said, are twice as allergy-causing as dogs. Yet it’s dogs that tend to travel. According to the American Pet Products Association, about 39 percent of dog owners take their pets when traveling for two nights or more, versus 11 percent of cat people.
While most of those traveling pets do so in the privacy of their masters’ cars, Amtrak just expanded its pet friendliness to most Eastern corridor and long-distance trains. And on its website, the Federal Aviation Administration warns: “You will still be exposed to pet dander on every flight, even without any pets in the passenger cabin. This is because most allergens are carried into the cabin on the clothes of other passengers.”
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