A PLANE has been grounded following the discovery of a bed bug outbreak, leaving furious passengers stranded for days.
Travellers onboard the Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner were horrified after reportedly being bitten on their flight from Perth to Rome on Friday.
The discovery forced the hand of Australia‘s most-popular airline, which had no choice but to cancel the return flight, QF6 on Saturday, News.com.au reports.
The infested plane was reportedly booked for a deep cleaning.
Stranded passengers were given accommodation and rebooked on alternative flights within 48 hours of their original departure, the airline said.
A Qantas spokesperson said: “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 airline said its aircraft cabins were regularly cleaned to an extremely high standard, with planes disinfected every 50 days as a precaution.
A deep clean to eliminate bed bugs requires fumigation, forcing the aircraft out of service.
The Perth-Rome route is a popular non-stop service, attracting passengers from Australia’s east coast willing to pay a premium for a direct connection to Italy.
Bed bugs are tiny, wingless parasites measuring about five millimetres that feed on blood, with a penchant for the human variety.
They can spread through clothing, furniture and personal belongings.
The little pests are notoriously hard to get rid of.
In August a woman woke up covered in more than 100 bed bug bites in blood-stained sheets after spending a night in a Travelodge Hotel.
Hannah Stephenson, 31, was a guest at the Newmarket Road hotel in Cambridge when she woke up with itchy red lumps across her body.
She said she counted 37 on her left hand alone.
Hannah said she was “horrified and shocked” by the bites, which she didn’t expect from her stay at the Travelodge as she thought the company was “pretty reliable”.
Bed bug infestations have been on the rise in the UK.
Concerns are also growing that the cost-of-living crisis has had an impact on bed bug resistance.
In money-saving efforts, more people are looking for cheap DIY treatments to dispose of the infiltrating insects.
These lacklustre efforts are often ineffective, causing infestations to grow.
The Sun has contacted Qantas for comment.