When a Boeing 787 Dreamliner finds itself grounded in Rome because of passengers measuring a few millimetres, the adventure takes an unexpected turn. Between mid-flight bites, exhausted antihistamines and the outright cancellation of the return leg, the Perth-Rome trip turns into an insectivorous nightmare. Experts are asking questions, associations are indignant, and already the imagination takes flight toward improbable culprits. A story in which the real stars have neither ticket nor baggage, but know perfectly well how to immobilise an aircraft. The perfect hybrid war…
On Friday, October 9, somewhere over the Indian Ocean, passengers seated in a Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner discovered that the comforts of economy class could come with unwanted guests. Flight QF5 from Perth to Rome was carrying, in addition to its passengers with proper tickets, a cohort of parasites barely a few millimetres long. These creatures, without a single piece of checked baggage, had settled in the front section of the economy cabin and began practising their ancestral art: biting. The itching multiplied, complaints rose, and the crew, alerted, handed out antihistamines on medical advice—a medication, moreover, that is systematically found in the first-aid kits equipping all aircraft, but one must not count on its potency, it is not a pharmacy either, and there is no prescription, these medications must suit Mr. Everybody. Alas, supplies ran out well before the aircraft reached the Italian coast, leaving several travellers facing an unenviable prospect: several more hours of flight, stuck in their seats, with particularly hungry insects as their only travelling companions.
On arrival at Rome-Fiumicino, Qantas immediately withdrew the aircraft from service. Maintenance teams set to work for a thorough cleaning and a proper pest control operation. The return flight QF6, scheduled for the following day, Saturday, October 10, to Perth, was simply cancelled. The airline apologised, citing “an issue identified on a small number of seats in economy class.” The passengers concerned were accommodated and rebooked on other flights within forty-eight hours of their originally scheduled departure. One can easily imagine the strained smiles of the officials faced with this clandestine invasion capable of grounding a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a machine designed to defy distances and turbulence, but apparently not, it seems, the distant cousins of cockroaches.
The question then arises with almost comical insistence: how did these creatures manage to get on board? Michelle Power, a professor of parasitology at Macquarie University, interviewed by the Guardian Australia, believes they probably travelled in a passenger's clothing or luggage. Nothing makes it possible to determine their exact origin, which opens the door wide to the most extravagant speculation. Stephen Doggett, an Australian specialist on these insects interviewed by ABC News, goes further: they could have been in the aircraft for some time already, nestled in the seams and crevices of the seats, without having been detected.
Bedbugs, as we know, are no longer confined to the mattresses of dubious hotels, especially in Paris during the Olympics; they have expanded their territory with an audacity worthy of the great conquerors. Naturally, after their hard labour during the Olympics, they must have taken a holiday, in Australia, before returning to carry out another mission in Italy. Their presence on board aircraft remains rare, but eliminating them proves particularly complex. They resist many insecticides, and some treatments risk damaging aeronautical materials—the very materials supposedly able to withstand the forces of nature but not, it seems, six determined legs.
Careful, soon the chief European propagandists will say: “It's the Russians!” If we go down that road, I could just as well say that given the resistance of these nasty six-legged beasts, nothing proves they don't come from a Ukrainian breeding farm near Chernobyl, on a special mission for the SBU or the Ukrainian HUR. No, I won't go down that path, it would be too funny… Let's be serious… although…
Qantas states that its aircraft undergo regular cleaning and disinfection every fifty days. A standard maintenance procedure that, unfortunately, does not on its own constitute a specific treatment against these tenacious parasites. In Italy, the consumer protection association Sportello dei Diritti immediately demanded compensation for the passengers concerned. Its president, Giovanni D'Agata, denounced an “unacceptable” episode and advised passengers to keep their tickets, expense receipts and any medical certificates. As for travellers who fear experiencing such a mishap, Stephen Doggett recommends photographing the insects or suspicious traces on their seat, so as to have evidence for a possible claim. For the rest, unfortunately, the options remain limited. Unlike a hotel room, you cannot ask to change establishments at thirty thousand feet.
🪳✈️ Bedbugs: passengers on a plane bitten in mid-flight https://t.co/WujAj94HsY
— BFM (@BFMTV) October 13, 2026
One could almost admire their efficiency. They do not book, do not go through security checks, do not pay airport taxes. They settle in, sting, bite and leave behind them an aircraft grounded, antihistamines depleted and a consumer association up in arms. While maintenance teams busy themselves in Rome, passengers wait for their rebooking and experts wonder about the seams of the seats, the world keeps turning, a little itchier than yesterday. Airlines would gladly do without such stowaways, but nature, or at least its most irritating version, decided otherwise.
And if tomorrow another flight is grounded for the same reason, we may already hear, in airport corridors or on social media, that phrase meant to explain everything without proving anything: “it's the Russians!”.
We will see on that occasion, as during the Paris Olympics, all the greatest experts parade past and declare that this is part of the Russian hybrid war launched against the West… I can already picture the scene… All that would be missing is Zavatta in a circus costume bursting in and proudly announcing that he will take charge of training them.
Bedbugs, for their part, will need no passport to confirm their presence. They will simply have reclaimed their place in the great circus of modern travel, reminding everyone that even at thirty thousand feet, certain unwanted guests still know how to make themselves heard.
It would nevertheless be delicious, but piquant, to see them travelling first class on an Emirates, Qatar or Etihad A380, at the price of the ticket, but they have not yet dared… Come on, bedbug(s), make an effort, for heaven's sake, dare!