Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson revealed the company was aware of the presence of bed bugs on flight QF5 before it departed Perth for a 16-hour flight to Rome last Friday.
Hudson also revealed the company removed seat covers while the plane was in Perth to remove the bugs, but conceded that effort wasn’t enough.
Passengers of Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight QF5 woke to screams when the bed bugs started crawling across their bodies, clothes and bags during the flight to Rome.
The Perth to Rome journey was the second leg of a service originating in Sydney.
Passengers on the Sydney to Perth flight told media they had spotted bed bugs on the plane and reported it to cabin crew.
Hudson, who was in Perth on Friday to launch a new Jetstar and Qantas steward training facility, said the company did respond to the Sydney to Perth reports.
“The first leg we did respond. We actually removed the [seat] covers on that and unfortunately the actions that we took weren’t effective in completely removing it,” she said.
The return flight to Perth was cancelled so the plane could undergo a deep clean in Sydney.
“We have done another change in covers, we’ve done a deep clean and a deep sterilisation of that aircraft,” she said.
“The covers and also the carpets will be destroyed.”
Hudson apologised to passengers.
“This is clearly a very unfortunate situation and distressing for those customers that were impacted and my apology to all of those customers that were impacted,” she said.
“[They were] crawling over our belongings, our clothing, our Qantas blankets, and they were even crawling along the window,” passenger Hailey Bagnall told 9 News earlier this week.
“On the way to getting our bags, the bugs just kept coming.
“They were in my husband’s shoes, crawling up our legs, crawling on our jumpers.”
Hudson said the new facility in Welshpool will see 1200 staff trained in Western Australia.
The Qantas to Rome flight is the only one of three long-haul direct Europe flights still operating, with the London and Paris flights rerouted through Singapore because of Middle East airspace closures.
Hudson said the Paris to Perth direct flight will return “relatively quickly” but the company will continue rerouting Perth to Paris via Singapore because it is a longer flight that burns more fuel.
“By stopping in at Singapore that gives us the ability to uplift more customers per flight,” she said.
