Bed bug outbreak on flight to Australia forces Qantas to ground plane

How to inspect your seat to stop pests hitching a ride. Bed bugs grounded a Rome to Perth flight on October 10. Picture Unsplash October 13, 2026 A bed bug outbreak has grounded an international Qantas flight after passengers in economy class complained they were being bitten by the pests. The October 10 flight from Rome to Perth was cancelled, and passengers were offered hotel accommodation until another plane was available. NSW Health Pathology Department of Medical Entomology director Dr Stephen Doggett said reports of bed bugs on planes were not uncommon. Get exclusive travel tips, hidden gems & expert insights: delivered to your inbox "There's been numerous reports ... In fact, once I was trave'ling from Hong Kong to Seoul and I was bitten by bed bugs on a plane," Dr Doggett said. Qantas apologises to passengers Qantas rebooked passengers on alternative flights within two days of their original departure and the airline is conducting a thorough inspection of the aircraft. "We sincerely apologise to customers for the cancellation of Saturday's Rome to Perth service," a spokesperson for the airline told Explore . "[It] 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." Insects can easily go unseen on a plane for weeks, with problems usually only coming to light long after the first travellers get bitten, Dr Doggett said. "It's only when the population builds up and somebody puts the reaction together ... often people will be bitten by bed bugs and the reaction can be quite delayed," he said. "It can take days to weeks before the reaction appears and so often when a bed bug problem becomes apparent, it's been there for some time." This means the outbreak may not have started in Rome, but could have been "travelling in the plane for some time," Dr Doggett said. How to spot bed bugs Bed bugs are big enough to see with the naked eye, meaning travellers can quickly check their plane seat or hotel bed before settling in. An adult bed bug is about the size of an apple seed and a deep red-brown colour, while younger bed bugs are about one millimetre long and a pale cream colour, Dr Doggett said. He recommended inspecting the seams of the plane seat, around the armrests and near the edges of seat cushions. "Everybody's got a torch on their mobile phones ... look for the insects themselves and also their poo spotting," the bed bug expert said. "They tend to defecate in groups ... so you see a concentration of poo spots." If a bed bug is found, Dr Doggett recommended snapping a picture for documentary evidence. Trapped by modern design Deep cleaning an aircraft to remove bed bugs is an uphill battle, Dr Doggett said. "There's two problems: one is that modern bed bug strains are highly resistant to insecticides," he said. "The second is that there's very few products you can use on aircraft because some of these chemicals will dissolve aluminium, and that's not good ... You don't want to destroy your plane." As Europe battles outbreaks of the pest, bed bug detection dogs are being used on aircraft to identify and manage surges. While sniffer dogs work well on simple European domestic planes, where infested seats can easily be unbolted and swapped out, Dr Doggett said this method falls short on international flights. Modern long-haul cabins, where individual business class seats cost up to $100,000, are packed with complex electronics that make pest removal much harder. Outbreaks grab headlines, such as the surge in Paris ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, but Dr Doggett said bed bugs have had a "global resurgence" in the past 28 years. Australia is managing its pest problem, but bed bugs can still be found around the country. Dr Doggett said he checks every hotel bed before he settles in, and has found bed bugs twice. "I've stayed in two hotels [where I found them] ... once in Central Australia, once up in Cairns," he said. "I immediately took photographs, marched down to the hotel manager, said, 'Get me another room'." It's a simple habit the pest expert urges every traveller to adopt, whether checking into a hotel room or boarding a long-haul flight. Anna Houlahan is a journalist for Explore and the Senior. Reach out with news or updates to anna.houlahan@austcommunitymedia.com.au