An Open letter to Star Alliance Airlines

At VoyageMD.com we are delighted that Star Alliance™ has been appointed the "official airline network" for the European Association for the Study of Diabetes Meeting (EASD) 2011 in Lisbon and World Diabetes Congress 2011 in Dubai.

This means that Star Alliance Airlines will be bringing many thousands of professionals involved in diabetes care together to provide an opportunity for them to discuss the latest scientific breakthroughs and innovations for people living with diabetes. You certainly have a very impressive network:

·        Member Airlines: 27

·        Number of aircraft : 4,023

·        Number of employees: 402,208

·        Passengers per year: 603.8 million

·        Sales Revenue (in US$): 150.7 billion

·        Daily departures: 21,000

·        Number of airports: 1,160

·        Countries served: 181

How about also using working with VoyageMD to help the many millions of travellers with diabetes?

We have already been in contact with Star Alliance members but many have not replied to our simple question:

“I have diabetes and I take insulin every day. I need to travel. What do you offer to make my journey easier and safer?”

To help travellers with diabetes we would like to suggest that Star Alliance members work with VoyageMD to:

• Make sure that all aircraft carry equipment for blood glucose monitoring
• Make sure that all flight crews are trained to recognise a low blood glucose level (hypoglycaemia) and know how to deal with it
• Provide the carbohydrate content of airplanes meals to help travellers chose a safe and accurate insulin dose and
• To work with VoyageMD to create easy to use software that will
• Allow travellers to identify a “diabetes-friendly” airline
• Provide information about how to deal with crossing times zones and the impact this can have on controlling blood glucose levels
• Provide contact information at the destination in case of loss of diabetes equipment or illness

You are already offering to help healthcare professionals involved in diabetes care. We now ask that you also help travellers with diabetes.

Please feel free to contact me at David.kerr@VoyageMD.com