A Qantas plane has undergone "a deep clean" after passengers were reportedly bitten by bed bugs on a long-haul flight.
Passengers travelling the nearly 17-hour journey from Perth to Rome on Qantas flight QF5 on October 9 reportedly complained of being bitten to cabin crew.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, passengers were given antihistamines to help ease the itch of the bites, but supplies ran out.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner then had to be grounded for "a deep clean", a Qantas spokesperson told the BBC.
A scheduled flight from Italy to Australia on Saturday was cancelled, and affected customers were reportedly provided with accommodation and rebooked on alternative flights within 48 hours of their original departure.
"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 was identified on a small number of economy seats," the spokesperson told the BBC.
The small, wingless parasites thrived in airplanes as they prefer to hide in dry, dark places and can live on any type of cloth fabric, such as mattresses, clothes, or suitcases, and were highly transmissible.
If they were found in places such a homes or hotels, owners usually fumigate the buildings to ensure they eliminate all the bedbugs.
However, that was not often possible to do on a plane because fumigating an aircraft could damage the electrical wiring found throughout the cabin, according to Fortune.
It was not the first time bed bugs had hitched a ride on planes and made international headlines.
In 2017, British Airways apologised to a family travelling from Vancouver to London, after they were left covered in bug bites from an overnight flight.
From March to October 2024, passengers on at least three Turkish Airlines flights found bedbugs on their plane, according to multiple stories by the New York Times.
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