Turner Paul J
National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol. 2025 Oct 1;25(5):336-342. doi: 10.1097/ACI.0000000000001090. Epub 2025 Jul 11.
Air travel has now returned to prepandemic levels, with over 10.5 billion passengers in 2024. Many of these passengers have food allergies, and there is a perception that allergic reactions are common during commercial flights.
A recent systematic review and meta-analysis reported an incidence of in-flight medical events due to allergic reactions of 0.7 (95% CI 0.4-1.1) events per million passengers. For those with food allergies, the incidence of allergic reactions is around 10-100 times lower than that reported for reactions 'on the ground' - equivalent to one reaction per 3600 food-allergic passengers in any 1-year period. Reassuringly, there is no evidence that this rate had increased over the past 30 years, despite significant increases in both the prevalence of food allergy and passenger numbers.
Allergic reactions during commercial flights are uncommon; however, this is very likely to be confounded by the many precautions food-allergic passengers and their families take when flying. Nonetheless, the data confirm that flying can be safe for those with food allergies. While air travel continues to present numerous challenges to those with food allergy, this can be mitigated by consistent and helpful airline policies, which address the concerns of food-allergic individuals.
航空旅行现已恢复到疫情前的水平，2024年旅客超过105亿人次。这些旅客中有许多人患有食物过敏，人们认为在商业航班飞行期间过敏反应很常见。
最近一项系统评价和荟萃分析报告称，因过敏反应导致的飞行中医疗事件发生率为每百万乘客0.7起（95%置信区间0.4 - 1.1）。对于食物过敏者，过敏反应的发生率比“地面”反应报告的发生率低约10 - 100倍——相当于每3600名食物过敏乘客在任何1年期间发生1次反应。令人欣慰的是，尽管食物过敏患病率和乘客数量都显著增加，但没有证据表明在过去30年里这一发生率有所上升。
商业航班飞行期间的过敏反应并不常见；然而，这很可能被食物过敏乘客及其家人在飞行时采取的许多预防措施所混淆。尽管如此，数据证实飞行对食物过敏者来说是安全的。虽然航空旅行继续给食物过敏者带来诸多挑战，但通过一致且有益的航空公司政策可以缓解这些问题，这些政策能解决食物过敏者的担忧。
