http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41685266

I should imagine that this is a common problem on most airlines, nice that they offered an upgrade to a better class of bed bug. Head lice and other crawly stuff is out there, just like hotel rooms. How often is cabin space deep cleaning done I wonder.

readytotaxi wrote:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41685266

I should imagine that this is a common problem on most airlines, nice that they offered an upgrade to a better class of bed bug. Head lice and other crawly stuff is out there, just like hotel rooms. How often is cabin space deep cleaning done I wonder.

With every D-check...or when seats are changed for new ones. Which makes you scratch your head, of course...

Maybe a change of fabric colouring might help...?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36128646

MalevTU134 wrote:

readytotaxi wrote:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41685266

I should imagine that this is a common problem on most airlines, nice that they offered an upgrade to a better class of bed bug. Head lice and other crawly stuff is out there, just like hotel rooms. How often is cabin space deep cleaning done I wonder.

With every D-check...or when seats are changed for new ones. Which makes you scratch your head, of course...

fantastic pun sir

Telling that BA ignored her until she posted pics of bites on twitter. Seems their customer service is still rubbish.

That's a terrible story,but I think Airlines should maybe publish some more information about their deep cleaning cycles and general information about the cleaning methods of metal tubes we spent hours in. .The other sad part is that airlines really don't care about their customers.Their customer service departments only handle FB and twitter issues,if you write them directly,hoping for an answer or a solution ,chances are slim you get any,most times just a copy paste answer of a general apology.Why bother.

I think people would be depressed if they saw how often airlines "deep clean" and aircraft. To be fair, even a deep cleaning likely wouldn't root out bedbugs. From what I understand about the main way to kill them is with heat.

As a road warrior, I'm constantly worried about bedbugs. Knock on wood, I haven't encountered them yet. I do try to practice good OPSEC, like keeping my bags away from the hotel beds, wash/dry clothes immediately when I get home, vacuum often, etc.

In the decades I´ve spent flying on multiple airlines in multiple places I´ve never had a problem with bed bugs or lice. So this must be a rare ocurrence. I am sure airlines fumigate their aircraft when even the slightest suspicion of a problem with these critters is reported, After all, fumigation should be very effective on an ariliner since it is a hermetically sealed environment.

AR385 wrote:

In the decades I´ve spent flying on multiple airlines in multiple places I´ve never had a problem with bed bugs or lice. So this must be a rare ocurrence. I am sure airlines fumigate their aircraft when even the slightest suspicion of a problem with these critters is reported, After all, fumigation should be very effective on an ariliner since it is a hermetically sealed environment.

That requires a certain number of hours/days for the plane to be out of service, and that costs $$$$.

Bedbugs are remarkably hard to kill. They've only been relatively absent from our world because of DDT. Since DDT was banned, they've been slowly coming back. They can live in very difficult to access spots. The little seems in the walls of an aircraft would be a good spot.

Chemicals are not particularly effective on them. Heat works well. 55°C for several hours is usually what is required, and is often done to homes and hotel rooms that have an infestation. Would it be safe to heat the interior of an aircraft like this? I imagine warming up all that plastic would leave a lingering smell.

Unfortunately whilst there are people infected with such things, these incidents will happen. I've ended up with scabies from a Premier Inn hotel bed in Southend and flea bites from a BA flight, in both cases the person primarily to blame is the one who was carrying the infestation to start with. Neither the hotel or the airline could have reasonably done anything prior to transmission occuring.

aerolimani wrote:

Bedbugs are remarkably hard to kill. They've only been relatively absent from our world because of DDT. Since DDT was banned, they've been slowly coming back. They can live in very difficult to access spots. The little seems in the walls of an aircraft would be a good spot.

Chemicals are not particularly effective on them. Heat works well. 55°C for several hours is usually what is required, and is often done to homes and hotel rooms that have an infestation. Would it be safe to heat the interior of an aircraft like this? I imagine warming up all that plastic would leave a lingering smell.

If that's all it takes, the solution is easy. Park it at Mojave for a day. Problem solved.

s4popo wrote:

AR385 wrote:

In the decades I´ve spent flying on multiple airlines in multiple places I´ve never had a problem with bed bugs or lice. So this must be a rare ocurrence. I am sure airlines fumigate their aircraft when even the slightest suspicion of a problem with these critters is reported, After all, fumigation should be very effective on an ariliner since it is a hermetically sealed environment.

That requires a certain number of hours/days for the plane to be out of service, and that costs $$$$.

Of course but I don´t think any decent airline is going to wait until the next D check to take care of such an infestation,

Boy I don't think airlines would typically make an announcement that they have bed bugs. Bed bugs happen all the time, we don't hear about it. I worked at a hospital, there was commonly rooms taken out of service so they could be fumigated. I have friends who refuse to check out books from the public library because bed bugs like books. Didn't even read the story but BA got caught, it's not their fault, doesn't mean they have bad hygiene, it means they deal with people, just like so many others.

MalevTU134 wrote:

With every D-check...or when seats are changed for new ones. Which makes you scratch your head, of course...

What do they do if the aircraft never had a D-Check?

aklrno wrote:

aerolimani wrote:

Bedbugs are remarkably hard to kill. They've only been relatively absent from our world because of DDT. Since DDT was banned, they've been slowly coming back. They can live in very difficult to access spots. The little seems in the walls of an aircraft would be a good spot.

Chemicals are not particularly effective on them. Heat works well. 55°C for several hours is usually what is required, and is often done to homes and hotel rooms that have an infestation. Would it be safe to heat the interior of an aircraft like this? I imagine warming up all that plastic would leave a lingering smell.

If that's all it takes, the solution is easy. Park it at Mojave for a day. Problem solved.

That's actually not a terrible idea. As long as it sits long enough for the heat to penetrate the upholstery. Pest control people force hot air into upholstery and mattresses to ensure penetration.

According to this CBC article on this incident, the bugs were most likely brought on board in hand luggage, as luggage is the usual way these bugs are moved from place to place. This has also been a problem at some hotels / motels in the Vancouver area for a while now, a colleague of mine got bitten up pretty badly at a well rated place in town. Another good reason to ban carry on luggage altogether?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.4363560

Wacker1000 wrote:

MalevTU134 wrote:

With every D-check...or when seats are changed for new ones. Which makes you scratch your head, of course...

What do they do if the aircraft never had a D-Check?

If it's BA: Stiff upper lip, old boy.

For countries that require quarantine sprays at top of decent, or residual sprays done during maintenance- eg NZ and Australia, do these sprays and the residual treatments not kill them?

smi0006 wrote:

For countries that require quarantine sprays at top of decent, or residual sprays done during maintenance- eg NZ and Australia, do these sprays and the residual treatments not kill them?

Those sprays have the effect of holy water. They cannot possibly reach and penetrate even a small portion of all the crevices, tears, folds and what have you in the fabric, leather, plastic and other materials onboard.

MalevTU134 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

For countries that require quarantine sprays at top of decent, or residual sprays done during maintenance- eg NZ and Australia, do these sprays and the residual treatments not kill them?

Those sprays have the effect of holy water. They cannot possibly reach and penetrate even a small portion of all the crevices, tears, folds and what have you in the fabric, leather, plastic and other materials onboard.

True - how about the residual treatments don’t to all surfaces? How effective are they?

Over the years I've seen enough write-ups for rats and roaches I'm no longer shocked to see the entries. Mainline aircraft.

aerolimani wrote:

aklrno wrote:

aerolimani wrote:

Bedbugs are remarkably hard to kill. They've only been relatively absent from our world because of DDT. Since DDT was banned, they've been slowly coming back. They can live in very difficult to access spots. The little seems in the walls of an aircraft would be a good spot.

Chemicals are not particularly effective on them. Heat works well. 55°C for several hours is usually what is required, and is often done to homes and hotel rooms that have an infestation. Would it be safe to heat the interior of an aircraft like this? I imagine warming up all that plastic would leave a lingering smell.

If that's all it takes, the solution is easy. Park it at Mojave for a day. Problem solved.

That's actually not a terrible idea. As long as it sits long enough for the heat to penetrate the upholstery. Pest control people force hot air into upholstery and mattresses to ensure penetration.

It really won’t take long. I’ve stopped for lunch in Death Valley for no more than an hour and then had to open the car doors for a while to let the car cool to ambient temperature. Ambient was 50C.

I recall when Landor did a interiors project for AA at the time when AA had sheepskin fur seat covers in domestic First. Anyone recall those? AA had told Landor that they had to get rid of those sheepskin covers (even though fliers loved the comfort) due to the fact they were all infested with every bug on earth, and a bacterial nightmare.
A friend of mine got bed bugs from a decent hotel in Amsterdam and she brought them home via her luggage. It took 3 major visits from exterminators using ice cold blasting and other fumigation bombs. It is total hell without DDT and it’s nobody’s fault other than Mother Nature’s. I don’t even want to think about it because it could happen to you on ANY airline- it just takes one previous infested passenger to infest a First Class seat on a luxury airline or regular people mover airline.