{"id":927969,"date":"2026-10-14T15:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927969\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T15:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:26:11","slug":"qantas-bed-bugs-complaints-of-bed-bugs-on-another-qantas-flight-two-weeks-earlier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/927969\/","title":{"rendered":"Qantas bed bugs: Complaints of bed bugs on another Qantas flight two weeks earlier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qantas<\/a> has been hit with another claim of bed bug<\/a> issues, stemming from a journey two weeks before the pests forced the cancellation of an intercontinental flight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frequent flyer Conor O\u2019Reilly said he was left covered in bites on his lower back and bottom, along with some on his arms and legs, after travelling from Los Angeles to Melbourne<\/a> on QF94 on September 30.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old said he overheard a man, woman and young child in the row behind him complaining about bed bugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe family were obviously pretty annoyed,\u201d he told nine.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSounded like they kind of were on the pillows or on the blankets that everyone gets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not sure if that’s where they came in or not, but sounded like it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US-based Irish-Australian said the family was moved to other seats and a spray Qantas described as a \u201csafe disinfectant\u201d was used when the plane landed in Melbourne.\u00a0<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly, who is a pilot himself, would have liked to see more passengers warned about the bed bugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t know I was bitten until I’d got home, and yeah, the second I pretty much \u2013 the second I walked in the door, I looked, started scratching,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then [I] took my shirt off and I could see the red marks coming out already.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described the bites as \u201cpretty bad\u201d but said he quickly washed all his clothes and prevented any infestation in his house.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly complained to Qantas customer service which, after a week, apologised for the inconvenience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry may board arriving international flights<\/a> to undertake precautionary checks or treatments,\u201d a customer care executive manager told him in an email seen by nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn this occasion, an issue was identified and isolated to two seats in the same row in Economy, and the aircraft<\/a> was treated with a safe disinfectant in accordance with Australian requirements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Conor O\u2019Reilly said he had bites on his arms and legs too.\u00a0Conor O’Reilly<\/p>\n

\u201cThe product used is routinely used by our cabin crew onboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Qantas said it takes reports of bed bugs and other pests on its aircraft \u201cseriously\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring our Los Angeles to Melbourne flight on 30 September, an issue was reported around two seats in the Economy cabin and our crew responded onboard,\u201d a Qantas spokesperson told nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter landing in Melbourne, the aircraft was treated in accordance with Australian biosecurity requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take reports like this seriously and apologise to the impacted customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au also understands seat bases and covers were then replaced in a number of seats around the area as a precaution.<\/p>\n

An investigation into the cause of the incident is under way.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly shared his experience in the wake of a bed bug outbreak on board a Qantas flight from Sydney<\/a> to Perth<\/a> and on to Rome.<\/p>\n

Passengers said they woke to screams as bed bugs crawled on their legs and up the windows, and the return flight was cancelled to carry out a deep clean of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the way to getting our bags, the bugs just kept coming,\u201d passenger Hailey Bagnall told 9News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

Qantas apologised for the cancellation after \u201can issue identified on a small number of economy seats\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qantas has been hit with another claim of bed bug issues, stemming from a journey two weeks before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-927969","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\/927969","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=927969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}