Passengers ‘woken by screaming’ on Qantas bed bug flight

www.nine.com.au ^ | October 13, 2026 | Sarah Swain and Jorge Branco

[Red Badger]

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 make it 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.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine; Military/Veterans; Travel
KEYWORDS: aviation

[Red Badger]

Have a nice flight!
Don’t let the bedbugs bite!.............

[Nervous Tick]

If I never fly again to a foreign country it’ll be too soon!

P.S. New York qualifies as a foreign country

[Red Badger]

This should be a movie starring Samuel L. Jackson................

[Pearls Before Swine]

Bugs on a plane > Snakes on a plane, any day.

[Nervous Tick]

What should the title of the movie be?

“Bugs on a plane” won’t cut it.

[Magnum44]

Bugs on a plane???

[mikey_hates_everything]

Import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world. Never saw them until a few years ago. Only heard about them as a kid in that saying about getting a good night’s sleep. I wonder how well DDT works on them. Thanks a lot Rachel Carson.

[Nervous Tick]

Now that there’s funny!

[posterchild]

So passengers acquire the bedbugs,
and take connecting flights on their way,
and these flights have other passengers on ‘em,
and so proceed ad infinitum

[Mr. K]

CEDARCIDE is the best product to get rid of them

[Mr. K]

CEDARCIDE is the best product to get rid of them

[Georgia Girl 2]

😲

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I am always impressed with the wonderful associations FReepers can make. Well done!! Did that just pop into your head?

[Magnum44]

As Stay-Puft Marsh-mellow man destroys Manhattan

[hanamizu]

Thanks a lot Rachel Carson.

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When my 8th-grade students got to the part of their history book that showed Rachel Carson as the ‘mother of the environmental movement’, I’d point out to them that by pushing the ban of DDT she was responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin combined.

Then I’d tell them about the California professor who ate some DDT.
“What happened to him?”, they’d ask.
“He died...twenty years later while climbing a mountain in his 80s”.

[Noumenon]

Did Qantas charge extra for the bedbugs?

[Disambiguator]

This method could be used on aircraft.

https://safrax.com/chlorine-dioxide-on-sanitizing-disinfecting-trucks-cabs/

[alexander_busek]

So passengers acquire the bedbugs,

and take connecting flights on their way,

and these flights have other passengers on ‘em,

and so proceed ad infinitum

Congratulations! You win the Internet today!

This is a story as old as time. In fact, even

Adam Pan Am had'em.

Regards,

[KittyKares]

I guess the passengers didn’t anticipate they would have to bring bug spray with them.