Flying on long haul flights with allergies can be stressful! The options are to either pack your food, take a gamble on airline food, or go hungry! I documented my meals eaten on my United Airlines flight to Hawaii (January 2026) so that you have an idea of what to expect on your flight!
Prior to my flight I edited my information on the app to include my allergy info and requested an allergy friendly meal. I was given the disclaimer that my meal would be dependent upon availability. I was given no confirmation email, or acknowledgment, and packed snacks just in case there was no food for me on the plane. If you are traveling with multiple allergies I would recommend that you do the same!
Flight One
My inbound flight included a drink, snack, and breakfast. Below, you can see the drink options! We chose water and ginger ale!
Next up, snack time! Complimentary Snacks included a Savory Snack Mix, Undercover Quinoa Crisp, and Daelmans Stroopwafel. I chose the quinoa crisp as it was dairy free, and nut free! (It is also gluten-free!)
Below, there are more options available for purchase!
Next up, meal time! Because of the timing of the flight, breakfast was served! For non-allergy folks, there were two options to choose from. My husband chose an apple pancake option that ended up being surprisingly good! My meal came out before his, already warmed up. No option was given, and I never even received confirmation from United that I would have a meal!
I was served a fruit salad, harvest roll, and brown sugar polenta. I truly appreciated the effort made my United to provide me with this meal, however, I ate basically none of it. The harvest roll I was served was one of the worst I’ve ever had, and the brown sugar polenta contained coconut milk, which is included in my nut allergy.
Along with this meal I was given Coconut Crunch as a snack, which I could not eat. I included the back of the package so that you can check for your allergies in advance!
Flight Two
For my second flight the snack and drink options were exactly the same as the first, shown above. My pictures and documentation were not as great as the first flight because I had been awake for almost 22 hours! Please excuse the blurry pictures!
Dinner was served on flight two. I got a roll, small salad with a lemon vinaigrette, pasta with red sauce, and chocolate chip granola bar.
Unlike my first flight, the pasta was unlabeled so I did not try it. My husband did though because he didn’t enjoy his tofu (they ran out of the chicken option) and he said that it was actually quite good for airline pasta!
The salad was nice and felt refreshing on the long flight, the roll was much better than the harvest roll, and the granola bar was tasty as well.
Overall, I greatly preferred the dinner I was served on Flight Two, although I was unable to fully enjoy either meal due to a lack of labeling or my allergens being present. United Airlines has put effort into allergy meals, but I think there is still a ways to go if they truly hope to be inclusive! The flight attendants dropped the meal and quickly hustled away because they were quite busy providing meals to the entire aircraft. Because of this, it makes it hard to ask questions about the ingredients of the unlabeled meals, and even if they were not busy, I’m not sure they would know the answer for certain!
I would recommend trying to request a special allergy meal on your next flight, but prepare for the worst! Read about my experience eating on Air France here!