A 12-year-old girl with a peanut allergy was thrown off a flight at Gatwick Airport with her family after the captain refused to ask passengers not to eat nuts for her safety. Nick Sollom, 48, told The Telegraph that he, his wife and their two children were ejected from a SunExpress flight after asking the crew to take his 12-year-old daughter’s allergy into consideration on a three-and-a-half-hour journey to Turkey . He said the family is now out of pocket by almost £5000 (NZ$10,340) as a result of having to make last-minute bookings with another airline and rearranging their accommodation.

Speaking from Dalaman, Turkey, Sollom said: “It’s just unbelievable that in 2024 this can happen. Just amazing.” The incident happened as the family tried to board a SunExpress flight to Dalaman, on Turkey’s south-western coast.

Rosie, the Solloms’ 12-year-old daughter, has a peanut allergy. She cannot be near the nuts in case she suffers a type of allergic reaction known as anaphylactic shock. Anaphylaxis is cited as a possible cause of death for between 20 to 40 people each year, according to the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Cabin crew ‘didn’t really care’ Sollom said the family’s problems began when he booked the flight, saying he could not find any way of notifying the airline about Rosie’s allergy. On arriving at Gatwick, Sollom said the SunExpress check-in desk told him to inform the cabin crew. SunExpress’s website says, on its onboa.