Babies on Board 17-Hour Air India Flight Bitten by Bed Bugs

July 20, 2018

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2 min read

Babies on Board 17-Hour Air India Flight Bitten by Bed Bugs

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A couple of Air India passengers are itching with anger after bed bugs swarmed their children on board a 17-hour flight this week.

The victims of the bed bugs were two babies seated in business class on Thursday's flight AI144 from Newark (EWR) to Mumbai (BOM). The two infant girls were continuously crying on board the Boeing 777. When the mother removed the younger, 8-month-old baby's clothes, she discovered that the child was covered in bug bites.

The babies' father, Pravin Tonsekar, tweeted pictures of the incident, tagging India Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He says his family's seats were "infested" with bed bugs.

Air India replied to Tonsekar's tweet, apologizing and saying that they would work to correct the problem.

TPG editor at large Zach Honig was not pleased with his experience on Air India either, although no bugs showed up on his flight. (The airline redeemed itself on another, much better flight we reviewed later.)

This isn't the first time unwanted creepy-crawler stowaways have irritated passengers mid-flight. In January, British Airways grounded a flight that was crawling with bed bugs when the crew refused to work the flight after noticing the infestation. (BA had an almost identical incident in October 2017, too). A similar situation occurred in March on a WOW Air flight when an ant infestation took over the aircraft. Passengers had to leave their luggage on board to be fumigated. A bed bug infestation was also discovered earlier this year in the Kansas City Airport (MCI).