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.
EE84M3i 51 days ago [-]
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.
51 days ago [-]
jnsaff2 50 days ago [-]
Can you share the date and the flight number? It would be great to map which aircraft had bedbugs.
temp_praneshp 50 days ago [-]
We took TK 79 on Oct 5 2024.
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.
"
ipnon 51 days ago [-]
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.
mastazi 51 days ago [-]
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?
nunez 50 days ago [-]
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.
dyauspitr 51 days ago [-]
Bed bugs can go up to 1 year without feeding. If you got something that fundamental wrong how can I trust the rest of it?
Izkata 50 days ago [-]
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.
ferfumarma 50 days ago [-]
That sounds so awful to experience!
How hard was it to finally get rid of them?
Izkata 50 days ago [-]
It took months before I actually saw one and realized I wasn't just reacting to something else (I had just changed laundry detergents when it started, for example), but after that it was one single heat treatment - had to leave for around 7 hours while the pest company brought in heaters and raised my apartment to 140 degrees for 5+ hours. Took several more hours afterwards to get back down to a normal temperature. Prep involved moving anything heat-sensitive (like batteries) into the fridge and spreading out things like tightly-packed clothing drawers so the heat could penetrate more easily.
Also the heat treatment isn't guaranteed to kill all of them, but it does damage them so they can't bite anymore. There were a few survivors I saw running around for months afterwards slowly starving since they couldn't feed. GGP saying they only survive a month is definitely wrong - the rule of thumb is 6 months, and I remember seeing a reference that they can feed on each other so a few would last longer.
colanderman 51 days ago [-]
I'm very confused, if the bed bugs are in/on the mattress, and you enclose the mattress in a cover, how do the bed bugs get out of the cover?
asielen 51 days ago [-]
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.
lotsofpulp 50 days ago [-]
Hotels get bed bugs all the time, and they don’t regularly throw away mattresses and furniture. Just call a professional terminator who uses the proper insecticides, and you can get rid of beg bugs. The downside is you usually cannot occupy the space for at least a few days.
I know of no hotels that bother with diatomaceous earth, so I presume it either doesn’t work sufficiently often, or it takes too long to work.
grumple 50 days ago [-]
Diatomaceous earth is very messy and slow.
A quick search tells me hotels usually do heat treatment. It requires a professional (or in house set up). I suspect they also wrap the mattresses by default, but I'm not sure that's strictly a bed bug measure.
Bed bugs are everywhere though. They will infest any public space with furniture, or any space like hotels where anybody can come in and out. They have infested my local movie theaters (at least the older ones). I bet there are a lot of airlines with this issue.
colanderman 50 days ago [-]
Then what is the purpose of the diatomaceous earth?
The GP's post implies some sort of causal relationship between placing the cover on the mattress and the bugs then being forced to crawl over the DE. I still do not see what the relationship is.
kamikazeturtles 51 days ago [-]
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.
Bed bugs are no joke
ahartmetz 51 days ago [-]
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.
nunez 50 days ago [-]
If you could see several of them, that meant that that hotel room had TONS AND TONS of them.
unsnap_biceps 51 days ago [-]
Every time I wake up with a itchy spot, my mind goes directly to bed bugs. How did you know they were bed bugs and not another bug bite?
lotsofpulp 51 days ago [-]
“Breakfast, lunch, dinner”. At least 2, but many times 3 bites in a line every few centimeters. But generally, there are a line of bites.
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.
Izkata 50 days ago [-]
Also possible she was bit, but didn't react to the bites. Not everyone does.
vacation6488 51 days ago [-]
There’s evidence of bedbugs.
If you never saw any evidence at all then it’s more likely scabies.
bean-weevil 51 days ago [-]
multiple/week is pretty infrequent for bed bugs. I've gotten more from spiders (proportionally; I vacuumed them up after the first night)
vacation6488 51 days ago [-]
Strange because you’d think it easy to fix.
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.
to11mtm 51 days ago [-]
> 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.
Izkata 50 days ago [-]
> 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.
rstuart4133 50 days ago [-]
> 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.
kylehotchkiss 51 days ago [-]
> the attendant dismissed their concern
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?
yakshaving_jgt 51 days ago [-]
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.
hackernoops 50 days ago [-]
Savages.
kylehotchkiss 51 days ago [-]
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.
dav43 51 days ago [-]
had a instance with them where I need the bare minimum of customer service. There was none. Won't fly again.
I wonder if after long term exposure one would suffer no symptoms from their bites at all
Mengkudulangsat 51 days ago [-]
Is this a recent phenomenon? Planes have been flying around for decades.
You'd think every airport and every airline would've been infested by now.
benatkin 51 days ago [-]
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.
Hilift 51 days ago [-]
People not aware that DEET bug spray is effective in airports/airplanes/public transportation for lice/bedbugs seems to be a recent phenomenon.
EE84M3i 51 days ago [-]
Do you put on bugspray before riding public transit?
fblp 51 days ago [-]
I had bed bugs and after I'd recommend cimi-shield treatment. It's a soybean based treatment that as far as I know is one of the safest treatments and long lasting (1yr+) (but expensive so rarely offered). Even dimactous earth can be a breathing hazard if stirred up and you have to leave it round visibly.
fallinditch 51 days ago [-]
It's always a good idea to check the bed and mattress of a hotel/motel/hostel room before settling in, even with upmarket hotels. Look for small dark spots in the mattress folds and crannies, these are their faeces. If there is a bad infestation you can really suffer.
Staying in a hotel, don’t leave bags clothes or anything lying around in the floor furniture or bed, put all your stuff in the bath/shower.
When you arrive check the mattress and it’s seams for signs of bedbugs (look up pics on Google of what to look for).
When you get home if you suspect you’ve brought some home, don’t bring anything at all into the house including shies and every single atom you are carrying.
If you can, if you have a freezer big enough, it’s a great weapon in the fight against bedbugs. Freeze everything you can that won’t get damaged by cold. Sheets clothes bags shoes bedding just go on a freezing frenzy.
Study up on diatomaceous earth solutions.
nytesky 51 days ago [-]
When traveling with a family, we have 4 suitcases. No bathroom we have encountered has that much space.
Why don’t hotels just start building purpose built tiled areas to store suitcases etc? If I put suitcase in a plastic bag that should help right?
lobochrome 51 days ago [-]
Confirming my rule: if you can’t reach it with United, Lufthansa or ANA - it’s not worth flying to.
Granted all of these have things wrong (LH C is ancient and has no privacy, UA staff is hit and miss, ANA is mostly excellent).
I don’t like changing planes in the desert thus the Arabian ones are off the plate…
lostlogin 51 days ago [-]
I don't know about the other two, but
Lufthansa? thats a low bar. I'd prefer Singapore, Air New Zealand or Qantas. Qatar would feature, but the molesty episode makes them too intense.
If I need to go to Singapore sure. If I need to go to down under or New Zealand sure.
BlackJack 51 days ago [-]
ANA is good but isn't even the best airline in its' own country. LH isn't the best airline in its' own group (Swiss and Austrian have better seats/service, and Swiss has equivalently good coverage).
United is probably the best US airline for international but domestically Delta is arguably better.
lobochrome 51 days ago [-]
I detest Swiss for forcing me to watch ads - also their service is hit or miss (okay same for lh) Austrian just doesn’t have any routes I need. JAL is on the wrong alliance thus I have only domestic experience.
myrandomcomment 51 days ago [-]
Agreed. JAL for the win.
yongjik 51 days ago [-]
United? I don't have much preferences with airlines, but I had a really bad experience with United, so I try to avoid them as much as possible.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 51 days ago [-]
Maybe they should add that to the swanky ads they put on TV to try and con you into visiting their, ahem, country.
51 days ago [-]
mannykannot 51 days ago [-]
Apparently permethrin can be used against bedbugs much as it can be used against ticks.
tonymet 51 days ago [-]
[flagged]
nunez 50 days ago [-]
Bed bugs don't care about your hygiene. Some of the cleanest places have had to deal with them.
lostlogin 51 days ago [-]
> declining personal hygiene
Is personal hygiene declining? How is that measured?
51 days ago [-]
sahin 51 days ago [-]
[flagged]
selcuka 51 days ago [-]
Oh, come on. This is such a dismissive comment. Not every negative news article is a smear campaign. Sometimes brands you love actually do shitty things. There is nothing patriotic about defending Turkish Airlines.
> It’s surprising to see The New York Times criticize them when there are countless horror stories that could be written about other airlines
Do you mean stories like these ones?
8 Incidents in 2 Weeks: What’s Going on With United’s Planes?
Ah, living up to the Turkish rep for being super nationalistic and defensive, I see. Also, seems like GPT or similar did a major overhaul on this comment.
yakshaving_jgt 51 days ago [-]
I’ve had bad experiences on Turkish Airlines and in Turkey more broadly.
I cut my last visit to Istanbul short because I no longer had the patience for the scam attempts.
I like visiting parts of Turkey, but let’s not pretend it’s a fairytale land where everyone is happy and kind.
Your comment reads as heavily biased, and I suspect you are a Turkish person.
abduhl 51 days ago [-]
Was this post written by the Turkish marketing team?
lotsofpulp 51 days ago [-]
Bed bugs have nothing to do with lack of cleanliness. The babies are basically undetectable, and the adults barely so.
They feed on blood, not sugar or food or other markers of “dirtiness”. They don’t need to feed for very long stretches of time, so they can be hiding anywhere, anytime, and only toxic insecticides can get rid of them.
theideaofcoffee 51 days ago [-]
Glad to hear you spent enough money (or most likely your employer spent enough) to get that status, the airline probably really appreciates it, right about as much as the next 80,000 ahead of you. But perhaps they appreciate those customers just a smidge more.
Hate to break it to you, but all airlines, regardless of status programs have issues. Some are just better at hiding them than others. It’s kind of humorous how a simple story elicits such a feeling of a personal attack. Perhaps try flying private if you’re traveling that much?
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.
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 the heat treatment isn't guaranteed to kill all of them, but it does damage them so they can't bite anymore. There were a few survivors I saw running around for months afterwards slowly starving since they couldn't feed. GGP saying they only survive a month is definitely wrong - the rule of thumb is 6 months, and I remember seeing a reference that they can feed on each other so a few would last longer.
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 know of no hotels that bother with diatomaceous earth, so I presume it either doesn’t work sufficiently often, or it takes too long to work.
A quick search tells me hotels usually do heat treatment. It requires a professional (or in house set up). I suspect they also wrap the mattresses by default, but I'm not sure that's strictly a bed bug measure.
Bed bugs are everywhere though. They will infest any public space with furniture, or any space like hotels where anybody can come in and out. They have infested my local movie theaters (at least the older ones). I bet there are a lot of airlines with this issue.
The GP's post implies some sort of causal relationship between placing the cover on the mattress and the bugs then being forced to crawl over the DE. I still do not see what the relationship is.
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.
See Greg Ovens (great YT channel by the way) talk about his awful experience staying in a motel - https://youtu.be/AOe9mvA3zoA?feature=shared
Staying in a hotel, don’t leave bags clothes or anything lying around in the floor furniture or bed, put all your stuff in the bath/shower.
When you arrive check the mattress and it’s seams for signs of bedbugs (look up pics on Google of what to look for).
When you get home if you suspect you’ve brought some home, don’t bring anything at all into the house including shies and every single atom you are carrying.
If you can, if you have a freezer big enough, it’s a great weapon in the fight against bedbugs. Freeze everything you can that won’t get damaged by cold. Sheets clothes bags shoes bedding just go on a freezing frenzy.
Study up on diatomaceous earth solutions.
Why don’t hotels just start building purpose built tiled areas to store suitcases etc? If I put suitcase in a plastic bag that should help right?
Granted all of these have things wrong (LH C is ancient and has no privacy, UA staff is hit and miss, ANA is mostly excellent).
I don’t like changing planes in the desert thus the Arabian ones are off the plate…
https://apnews.com/article/qatar-australia-united-arab-emira...
United is probably the best US airline for international but domestically Delta is arguably better.
Is personal hygiene declining? How is that measured?
> It’s surprising to see The New York Times criticize them when there are countless horror stories that could be written about other airlines
Do you mean stories like these ones?
8 Incidents in 2 Weeks: What’s Going on With United’s Planes?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/travel/united-airlines-bo...
United Airlines Faces Closer F.A.A. Scrutiny After Safety Incidents
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/business/united-airlines-...
Severed Cable Forces Lufthansa to Cancel More Than 140 Flights
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/business/lufthansa-it-pro...
Transportation Department to Investigate Delta After Flight Delays
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/us/pete-buttigieg-delta-o...
I cut my last visit to Istanbul short because I no longer had the patience for the scam attempts.
I like visiting parts of Turkey, but let’s not pretend it’s a fairytale land where everyone is happy and kind.
Your comment reads as heavily biased, and I suspect you are a Turkish person.
They feed on blood, not sugar or food or other markers of “dirtiness”. They don’t need to feed for very long stretches of time, so they can be hiding anywhere, anytime, and only toxic insecticides can get rid of them.
Hate to break it to you, but all airlines, regardless of status programs have issues. Some are just better at hiding them than others. It’s kind of humorous how a simple story elicits such a feeling of a personal attack. Perhaps try flying private if you’re traveling that much?