Passengers have told of waking to screams as bed bugs crawled on their legs and up the windows of a Qantas flight.
They said they raised the alarm with air stewards on the Sydney to Perth leg of flight QF5 on Friday, before the plane continued on to Rome.
“[They were] crawling over our belongings, our clothing, our Qantas blankets, and they were even crawling along the window,” passenger Hailey Bagnall told 9News.
The return flight to Perth at the weekend ended up being cancelled so the Boeing 787 Dreamliner could undergo a deep clean.
“On the way to getting our bags, the bugs just kept coming,” Bagnall said.
“They were in my husband’s shoes, crawling up our legs, crawling on our jumpers.”
Passenger Hailey Bagnall said bed bugs were crawling over her belongings on the Qantas flight. 9News
Travellers complained of being bitten on the almost 17-hour non-stop service to Italy.
“I was woken by screaming, a baby saying ‘buggies’ – some children were sick,” one passenger, who didn’t want their name published, said.
Some passengers were delayed by up to two days due to the cancelled return leg. Qantas said affected passengers were given hotels and rebooked on flights.
“We sincerely apologise to customers for the cancellation of Saturday’s Rome to Perth service, which allowed our engineers and maintenance teams to carry out a deep clean of the aircraft after an issue identified on a small number of economy seats,” the airline said in a statement shared with nine.com.au.
Bed Bugs Bedbugs are tiny creatures which can appear in hotels and even on planes. AP
Qantas said its aircraft were cleaned regularly and disinfected every 50 days as a precaution.
Bed bugs are about six millimetres long and feed on blood. They are attracted by heat and carbon dioxide, such as that provided by sleeping humans, and their bites can cause red spots, which can become itchy.
University of Western Australia Associate Professor Theo Evans said they could travel up to about 10 metres.
“They’re looking for something to eat, and if they find somebody they can bite onto quickly, they won’t go any further,” the biological scientist and insect expert said.
An adult bed bug can live two months without feeding.
Bed bug expert Stephen Doggett previously told 9News the insects could be found on planes.
“It’s in the frequent flier seats – it’s always a problem, often business class, and crew quarters,” the director of medical entomology at Westmead Hospital for NSW Health Pathology said.
Bed bugs can also be particularly common in airport hotels, because of the high turnover.
Bedbugs can sometimes be found on planes. Qantas
Infestations can be exceedingly difficult to remove if they mait into passengers’ bags and eventually into their homes.
It’s not the first time bed bugs have been found on a flight. In 2017, the insects crawled on a British Airways plane from Vancouver to London, and again in 2024 on a Turkish Airways flight from Johannesburg to Istanbul.
