Thanks for posing this Ellen. I will need to look into this as we are scheduled to fly AA in two weeks.
To be very honest, I would NOT do anything to alert AA to the fact that your child wears an Omnipod. I'd keep the PDM in your bag, I'd be very discrete if you need to use it under 10,000 feet, and would otherwise not draw attention to it at all. If someone notices it and asks you to turn it off, I would NOT inform them that you can't do that. I would smile, nod, and slip it into my bag. We've never turned the CGM off when we've flown, and I've never felt compelled to bring that fact to anyone's attention.
I agree, and quite frankly I would also be annoyed at Insulet for not stepping up to the plate and dealing with this! This is THEIR product and they need to do whatever they can to make it easy for their customers to fly. Shame on them!
Wow, I just read through the end of the post and it looks like American Airlines is requiring that he turn his pod off for the ENTIRE flight for 3 hours. They investigated and said it's like a cell phone and must be turned off for the entire flight. That's scary.
I'm glad to see him standing up to them. They need to allow the pump as it's no different than a pace maker in terms of need.
It's the FCC laws and regulations, the ADA laws will not exempt an individual in this case. Note: There's not enough power generated for the signal to cause interference. The omnipod's reception is very short range, which requires significantly less power, and will produce virtually negligible interference. The same goes with CGMS devices, even the Navigator, which puts out a 30-50 ft signal, in my experience. Cell phones, which all now use precise, digital signals (in comparison to analog), since about 2004, do not cause significant interference, either. It's the antiquated FCC regulations that are the root of the issue. Oh, and BTW, the airliner is required by federal law to enforce this law. If they didn't say "no", they could be fined heavily, among other things. The best way to look at it is, "If they don't know, then they can't care!"
wow, thats strange, pumps are run my batteries, so they do not interfere with any aircraft, same with his meter when he does his prick tests, you cannot compare it to a cellphone. Very strange, you can use your laptops on airplanes. How is it different? I have just come back from Australia, I didn't even need to tell them Dylan was wearing a pump, I had a letter from the hospital just in case, Dylan has flown 4 times internationally and never had a problem through customs.
Any sort of device that uses wireless transmission is not allowed to be used/turned on in airplanes. That would also include a lot of "tubed pumps" too.
