Qantas flight plagued by bed bugs despite early crew alert

Hailey Bagnall was trying to sleep on a Qantas flight bound for Rome when she realized something was crawling across her belongings. The insects were everywhere—in her husband's shoes, up their legs, across their jumpers, along the aircraft windows. By the time the Boeing 787 Dreamliner touched down after its 17-hour journey, passengers had endured what amounted to a rolling infestation at 35,000 feet, one that crew members had known about for hours before the plane ever left Australian airspace.

The outbreak began on flight QF5, which departed Perth on a Friday with Rome as its final destination. Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, passengers started complaining to cabin crew about bed bugs biting them mid-flight. The insects, measuring between one and five millimetres, were small enough to hide almost anywhere—in seat crevices, in blankets, in the folds of clothing. Cabin crew distributed antihistamines to affected travellers, rationing them until supplies ran out. One passenger described being jolted awake by screaming, a child crying out about "buggies," and other travellers becoming physically ill from the stress and the bites themselves.

What made the situation worse was that Qantas staff had been alerted to the problem much earlier. During the Sydney-to-Perth leg of the same flight—before the aircraft ever pointed toward Rome—passengers had already flagged the bed bugs to crew. Despite this warning, the airline allowed the plane to continue on its international route. It was only after the aircraft landed in Rome that Qantas took decisive action, cancelling the return service scheduled for Saturday and pulling the Dreamliner out of service for a deep clean and fumigation.

Passengers who had booked the Rome-to-Perth return flight were rebooked on alternative services within 48 hours and provided with accommodation while they waited. A Qantas spokesperson acknowledged the disruption, saying the cancellation was necessary to allow maintenance teams to thoroughly clean the aircraft after "an issue was identified on a small number of economy seats." The airline noted that its aircraft undergo regular cleaning and are disinfected every 50 days as standard protocol.

Bed bugs are parasitic insects that feed on human blood and reproduce quickly, spreading through clothing, luggage, and personal belongings. While their bites cause itching and swelling, they are not known to transmit disease and are not classified as a public health hazard by health authorities. Still, their presence on an aircraft—especially one carrying hundreds of passengers on an overnight flight—represents a significant operational and reputational problem for any airline.

The Perth-to-Rome route is a flagship service for Qantas, one the airline had expanded aggressively by adding 40 additional flights and nearly 10,000 seats to its seasonal schedule through late October. The infestation and subsequent cancellation disrupted that expansion and raised questions about how thoroughly aircraft are inspected between flights.

This is not the first time bed bugs have infiltrated a commercial aircraft. British Airways discovered them aboard a Vancouver-to-London flight in 2017, and Turkish Airlines passengers reported an outbreak on a Johannesburg-to-Istanbul service in 2024. Each incident underscores how quickly these insects can spread in the confined, high-traffic environment of a modern airliner, and how difficult they are to contain once they take hold.