Passengers on several Turkish Airlines flights reported bedbugs crawling on seats and falling from the cabin, with the carrier working to eliminate the infestation, according to a report.
Last March, Patience Titcombe, 36, claimed she noticed a small insect crawling into her seat after she boarded a Turkish Airlines flight from Johannesburg to Istanbul.
“I almost threw it away,” she told the New York Times. “But my friend stopped me and said, ‘These are bedbugs.’”
She added that a flight attendant on the plane got rid of the insect, but dismissed Titcombe's concerns that it was a bedbug.
“I had to undress at the airport and change my clothes because I have kids – what if I bring bedbugs home?” Titcombe told the Times.
Titcombe later posted photos of the insect to a travel group on Facebook, where other travelers shared similar encounters with the nasty pests on Turkish Airlines flights that were rejected by the carrier, according to the Times.
Turkish Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In October, Matthew Myers, 28, and his girlfriend were flying from Istanbul to San Francisco on a Turkish Airlines flight. He added that the passenger next to Myers tapped him on the shoulder to alert him to the presence of bed bugs crawling on the seats and falling from the plane cabin.
Myers said he saw bugs landing on his neighbor's lap.
“Many passengers were asking to change their seats after discovering the errors,” Myers told The Times.
One passenger moved to the flight attendant's empty jump seat as bed bugs continued to fall, he said.
A flight attendant told terrified passengers that she had filed a formal complaint during the flight, Myers said.
He said the airline later offered Myers a 10% discount on future flights — valid through the end of the year.
He told him that the carrier informed him that the planes undergo a deep cleaning every 21 days, and a “general cleaning” is performed before each flight.
Later in October, Christine Bourgeois, 37, said she saw bedbugs crawling around the plane during her 10-hour flight from the capital area to Istanbul.
“Before leaving, I noticed a bug crawling on my blanket,” she told The Times. “When I found another one on the pillow, I realized it was bed bugs.”
She took pictures of 13 insect bites on her skin after the trip.
After filing a complaint, Turkish Airlines asked Bourgeois via email to provide “a medical report certified by a doctor with signature, stamp and date,” according to the Times.
When she tried to follow up with the airline, she said Turkish Airlines representatives told her they couldn't find her reservation, then suddenly said they had found it and hung up the phone.
Then, she said she checked her flight history and noticed it had been removed from the airline app.
The airline later offered her 5,000 frequent flyer miles.
Another Turkish Airlines passenger said they were bitten by bedbugs during a flight in August. Despite sharing photos of the stings with the carrier's help desk, the passenger received an email stating that Turkish Airlines could not find any complaints from her flight and that its planes are “regularly disinfected,” according to a screenshot of the email posted on X.
Bedbugs — which live in mattresses, bedding, carpets and clothing, and usually bite at night — can travel easily in suitcases and are difficult to eradicate.
In 2023, Paris suffered a bedbug outbreak during Fashion Week as the pests took over public transportation. South Korea launched a bedbug prevention campaign in mass transit centers in the same year.
People with bedbugs often have to seal all their belongings in airtight plastic bags and fumigate their homes several times.
For airlines, the process takes two to five days and can cost up to $125,000 between lost revenue from canceled flights and the treatment itself, according to the report.
Rob Tuck, president of aviation consultancy Jet Research, told The Times that planes would have to be brought into maintenance, and air carriers would have to decide whether to cancel future flights.
Founded in 1933, Turkish Airlines today operates nearly 400 aircraft across more than 300 destinations, flying to several US cities including New York. The airline operates multiple flights daily between the United States and Turkey.
