Passenger becomes sick onboard

Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea can have many causes onboard — motion sickness, anxiety, a pre-existing condition, or suspected food-related illness. Crew ask what the passenger ate or drank recently and when symptoms started, without trying to diagnose the exact cause.

Within training, crew offer comfort items (sick bags, water, a cool cloth), help the passenger to the lavatory if they are able to move safely, and monitor for signs of worsening such as persistent vomiting, visible dehydration, fainting, or blood in vomit or stool — any of which is reported immediately.

Hygiene protects everyone else: gloves are used when handling any bodily fluids, contaminated materials are bagged and disposed of according to the airline's procedure, and the affected area is cleaned following approved cleaning procedures rather than improvised methods.

If multiple passengers who ate the same meal develop similar symptoms around the same time, this pattern is reported promptly, since it may point to a food safety issue affecting more than one person.

Protecting other passengers also means being mindful of hand hygiene for the ill passenger and crew themselves, and keeping the area as clean and contained as practical in the cabin environment.

Severe or worsening symptoms, dehydration, or any sign the passenger's condition is deteriorating are escalated to senior crew and the flight deck, following the same recognize-assess-alert pattern used across other medical situations.