{"id":926809,"date":"2026-10-13T16:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T16:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926809\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T16:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T16:22:16","slug":"qantas-bed-bugs-passengers-woken-by-screaming-on-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926809\/","title":{"rendered":"Qantas bed bugs: Passengers \u2018woken by screaming\u2019 on flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passengers have told of waking to screams as bed bugs crawled on their legs and up the windows of a Qantas<\/a> flight.<\/p>\n

They said they raised the alarm with air stewards on the Sydney<\/a> to Perth<\/a> leg of flight QF5 on Friday, before the plane continued on to Rome.<\/p>\n

\"Boeing<\/p>\n

Passengers on a Qantas flight were delayed due to bedbugs.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201c[They were] crawling over our belongings, our clothing, our Qantas blankets, and they were even crawling along the window,\u201d passenger Hailey Bagnall told 9News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The return flight to Perth at the weekend ended up being cancelled so the Boeing 787 Dreamliner could undergo a deep clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the way to getting our bags, the bugs just kept coming,\u201d Bagnall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were in my husband’s shoes, crawling up our legs, crawling on our jumpers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Passenger Hailey Bagnall said bed bugs were crawling over her belongings on the Qantas flight.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Travellers complained of being bitten on the almost 17-hour non-stop service to Italy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was woken by screaming, a baby saying \u2018buggies\u2019 \u2013 some children<\/a> were sick,\u201d one passenger, who didn\u2019t want their name published, said.<\/p>\n

Some passengers were delayed by up to two days due to the cancelled return leg. Qantas said affected passengers were given hotels<\/a> and rebooked on flights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sincerely apologise to customers for the cancellation of Saturday\u2019s Rome to Perth service, which allowed our engineers and maintenance teams to carry out a deep clean of the aircraft<\/a> after an issue identified on a small number of economy seats,\u201d the airline said in a statement shared with nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\"Bed<\/p>\n

Bedbugs are tiny creatures which can appear in hotels and even on planes.\u00a0AP<\/p>\n

Qantas said its aircraft were cleaned regularly and disinfected every 50 days as a precaution.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

University of Western <\/a>Australia<\/a> Associate Professor Theo Evans said they could travel up to about 10 metres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re looking for something to eat, and if they find somebody they can bite onto quickly, they won’t go any further,\u201d the biological scientist and insect expert said.<\/p>\n

An adult bed bug can live two months without feeding.<\/p>\n

Bed bug expert Stephen Doggett previously told 9News<\/a> the insects could be found on planes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in the frequent flier seats \u2013 it\u2019s always a problem, often business class<\/a>, and crew quarters,\u201d the director of medical entomology at Westmead Hospital for NSW Health<\/a> Pathology said.<\/p>\n

Bed bugs can also be particularly common in airport hotels, because of the high turnover.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Bedbugs can sometimes be found on planes.\u00a0Qantas<\/p>\n

Infestations can be exceedingly difficult to remove if they make it into passengers\u2019 bags and eventually into their homes.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, and again in 2024 on a Turkish Airways flight from Johannesburg to Istanbul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Passengers have told of waking to screams as bed bugs crawled on their legs and up the windows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-926809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}