We took a Turkish Airlines flight in September (IST-SFO), and the seats were teeming with bedbugs (as in, multiple passengers were able to visually point them out when we were still boarding).
Some passengers were able to switch to other seats, while multiple others broke out in hives (including my wife). The cabin staff were polite and understanding, but once we landed, escalating to Turkish airlines was pretty useless. We've filed a case with the DOT which got the airline to respond.
Glad the media is covering this, we heard from multiple folks that this has been a problem.
Wow, did you consider requesting to deplane? I would at least seriously consider it, considering the notoriously difficult to get rid of nature of bed bugs.
Also, my search brought up this final response from Turkish, which infuriated me enough that I wanted to share:
"Thank you for your feedback.
At Turkish Airlines, we strive to provide all our passengers with the best flying experience possible and to make them feel valued at every stage of their journey. As giving our passengers who choose us on their travels the service they deserve and delivering this excellently are among our priority targets, we again have experienced how important your feedback is.
Through your feedback, we’re able to improve the services we provide. We’d like to thank you again for your support.
We kindly submit for your information and wish to host you better in your future travels.
If you ever have your home infested with bed bugs, their eradication is simple. You need to have a bedframe with countable legs, a bug-proof plastic mattress cover, and a bag of diatomaceous earth. You simply zip the cover over your mattress, and put a 1cm layer of diatomaceous earth around the feet of your bedframe. The bed bugs naturally come out to feed on you at night, then find burrows to hide in during the day. Normally they'd hide in the crooks of your mattress, but we've already prevented this. They are forced to walk down your bedframe, and over the layer of diatomaceous earth, which causes fatal ruptures in their carapace. Bed bugs can only live about a month without feeding, and you should expect any small to medium sized infestation to resolve in this timeframe, certainly any infestation which might arise from picking up a few bed bugs from traveling.
This sounds like a very good solution but how about eggs? I would imagine that those can survive longer than a month. IIRC I once heard that the eggs would be usually on the underside of your mattress, so you should keep the plastic cover on until after the eggs have hatched and the bugs died. Is that correct?
This is assuming they aren't hiding in your other clothes or fabrics, which they are very good at doing. There's a reason why "burn the house down" is a common retort to people asking about bed bugs. They are damn near impossible to get rid of.
They'll nest in just about anything with nooks and crannies, and don't only feed at night - they adjust to your schedule. When I had them, they first got to my couch, not my bed, and would also go after my feet while sitting at my desk.
They don't. You leave the cover on until you are sure you got them all and then you throw away the mattress and get a new one.
Also wash everything you own in hot and dry on hot. Or put it in an airtight box for at least a year. They can and will live anywhere within a few feet of where you spend a lot of your time. Couches, beds, chairs, carpets, etc.
This person is downplaying how hard it can be to get rid of them.
I've experienced living with bed bugs during my boarding school years. Despite getting multiple bug bites a week consistently for a couple years, I never actually got to see a live bed bug.
That's strange. Apparently, the only time I ever met any, they must have been very hungry - they crawled right at me over the open bedsheet when the light was still on. I killed the front of the first assault wave and got the hell out of that crappy hotel room.
Note that some people attract bed bugs, and some people don’t. One time, I woke up with 40+ bites, and my wife with none. She has never been bit in her whole life, and I have been bit on at least 7 or 8 different occasions during my travels.
> A few hours of the plane being hot should wipe them all out.
That's a few hours where the plane couldn't run a flight. I'm guessing most of the 'normal maintenance' doesn't give enough time for everything to get hot enough.
Or, inversely, whatever 'schedule' they are trying to do, isn't quite enough which makes them more voracious [0]. You'd still need to get the temp above 130-150F for 5-10 minutes throughout [1]
All of that said, short of a -rabid- infestation you'd not expect to see one on you unless it's a long flight. I wonder if good countermeasures [2] just don't play well with airline ventilation?
[0] - General understanding is that the metabolism is very temperature based; high temperatures will cause fast die-off but much of that is added cold-blooded metabolism crossed with general tendency to need food/hydration.
[1] - Watch a 'heat treatment' video; the bugs often scatter panicked trying to find something tolerable.
[2] - AFAIK a desiccant (e.x. DE or Cimexa) is great against all sorts of 'pests' but applied wrong it can cause breathing issues short or long term.
> You'd still need to get the temp above 130-150F for 5-10 minutes throughout
To ensure everything is heated up effectively, without cold pockets for them to hide in, the heat is maintained for around 6 hours. It then can take several more to cool down to normal.
> A few hours of the plane being hot should wipe them all out.
The article addresses this. Quoting:
The process typically takes two to five days and can cost airlines between $75,000 and $125,000 when accounting for lost revenue and treatment expenses. “They do have a bit of a protocol to work from,” Mr. Tuck said. “You’ll pull the airplane out of service and you’ll bug bomb it.” But without a spare aircraft available for long-distance routes, airlines face difficult decisions, particularly when passengers report infestations mid-journey.
I found Turkish airlines staff to be more stand-offish than others when I flew with them internationally a few years back. Is that anybody else's everyday experience with them?
Last time I flew with Turkish Airlines, they gave me the wrong seat number (which was in business class), and then once they realised their mistake, the flight attendant shouted at me and told me to go sit in economy.
My story involves flying over Nepal in a place where you definitely could not see Everest out of the window and having the pilot saying "look out the window, it's Everest!". Pretty sure it was K2 as the plane was west of KTM.
I think as a practical matter they depend on people sleeping to survive. That's something I've rarely been able to achieve at an airport or on an airplane but a lot of people can and it seems to have gotten more common, especially with delays.
Readit News
Some passengers were able to switch to other seats, while multiple others broke out in hives (including my wife). The cabin staff were polite and understanding, but once we landed, escalating to Turkish airlines was pretty useless. We've filed a case with the DOT which got the airline to respond.
Glad the media is covering this, we heard from multiple folks that this has been a problem.
Deleted Comment
Also, my search brought up this final response from Turkish, which infuriated me enough that I wanted to share:
"Thank you for your feedback.
At Turkish Airlines, we strive to provide all our passengers with the best flying experience possible and to make them feel valued at every stage of their journey. As giving our passengers who choose us on their travels the service they deserve and delivering this excellently are among our priority targets, we again have experienced how important your feedback is.
Through your feedback, we’re able to improve the services we provide. We’d like to thank you again for your support.
We kindly submit for your information and wish to host you better in your future travels.
"
How hard was it to finally get rid of them?
Also wash everything you own in hot and dry on hot. Or put it in an airtight box for at least a year. They can and will live anywhere within a few feet of where you spend a lot of your time. Couches, beds, chairs, carpets, etc.
This person is downplaying how hard it can be to get rid of them.
Bed bugs are no joke
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bed+bug+bite+picture&t=iphone&iax=...
Note that some people attract bed bugs, and some people don’t. One time, I woke up with 40+ bites, and my wife with none. She has never been bit in her whole life, and I have been bit on at least 7 or 8 different occasions during my travels.
If you never saw any evidence at all then it’s more likely scabies.
Bedbugs are highly temperature sensitive…. treatment involves raising the temperature of infested rooms.
And aero plane interiors can get very hot if they sit on the runway without the aircon.
A few hours of the plane being hot should wipe them all out.
That's a few hours where the plane couldn't run a flight. I'm guessing most of the 'normal maintenance' doesn't give enough time for everything to get hot enough.
Or, inversely, whatever 'schedule' they are trying to do, isn't quite enough which makes them more voracious [0]. You'd still need to get the temp above 130-150F for 5-10 minutes throughout [1]
All of that said, short of a -rabid- infestation you'd not expect to see one on you unless it's a long flight. I wonder if good countermeasures [2] just don't play well with airline ventilation?
[0] - General understanding is that the metabolism is very temperature based; high temperatures will cause fast die-off but much of that is added cold-blooded metabolism crossed with general tendency to need food/hydration.
[1] - Watch a 'heat treatment' video; the bugs often scatter panicked trying to find something tolerable.
[2] - AFAIK a desiccant (e.x. DE or Cimexa) is great against all sorts of 'pests' but applied wrong it can cause breathing issues short or long term.
To ensure everything is heated up effectively, without cold pockets for them to hide in, the heat is maintained for around 6 hours. It then can take several more to cool down to normal.
The article addresses this. Quoting:
The process typically takes two to five days and can cost airlines between $75,000 and $125,000 when accounting for lost revenue and treatment expenses. “They do have a bit of a protocol to work from,” Mr. Tuck said. “You’ll pull the airplane out of service and you’ll bug bomb it.” But without a spare aircraft available for long-distance routes, airlines face difficult decisions, particularly when passengers report infestations mid-journey.
I found Turkish airlines staff to be more stand-offish than others when I flew with them internationally a few years back. Is that anybody else's everyday experience with them?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAOTJxYqh8
You'd think every airport and every airline would've been infested by now.