Beg Bugs On Plane Bite Flight Passenger, Leaves Rashes On Body [Report]

A flight passenger aboard an Air India flight complained of being bitten by bed bugs recently.

Ravi Kumar had the terrible experience while traveling on a domestic flight of the airline from Delhi to Bengaluru, India, on Oct. 17. He said his ordeal started shortly after he boarded the flight at 5:40 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m. EDT).

“I felt itchy and was scratching throughout the flight. I thought there were mosquitoes on board. I didn’t realize that I was bitten by bed bugs till I reached home and removed my shirt,” Ravi told local daily The Times Of India. “Though I was uncomfortable throughout, I didn’t complain to the cabin crew. It didn’t occur to me that I was being bitten by bugs.”

Despite going through a less-than-pleasant experience of flying with Air India, the passenger said he still hadn’t lodged a formal complaint with the airline. That may be the reason that the airline spokesperson denied having any knowledge of the incident when The Logical Indian, a local news media outlet, reached out for a comment.

Vinika Kumar, Ravi’s daughter, however, said she had tweeted out a photo of her father’s experience on the plane — a picture that reportedly showed Ravi’s back filled with spots of a red rash that she claimed was the result of bug bites.

“I tagged the airline in my tweet, but I haven’t received any response yet,” she added.

While this is the first complaint of its kind regarding the airline’s domestic flights, Air India had been grappling with similar complaints associated with their international flights.

In July, an infant was bitten by bedbugs while flying on a 17-hour-long flight from Mumbai, India, to Newark, New Jersey, aboard Air India flight AI-144.

A source with knowledge of the incident told The Times Of India that the incident happened in the business class section and came to light when the flight was about to land.

“As the eight-month-old infant had been crying the distressed mother removed the child’s clothes and found numerous bite marks all over,” the source said, adding that a part of the duvet was filled with blood stains. “They were on seats next to each other. Bed bugs were seen crawling even on the white tablecloth while it was being cleared.”

That incident occurred days after a man complained of bed bugs on the same flight having bitten his daughters. After the ordeal, Pravin Tonekar, the father, tweeted: “All our seats infested with bed bugs. Sir, have heard of before bugs in trains, but shocked to experience on our Maharaja [meaning king, which referred to the airline's mascot] that too business. My both daughters were badly bitten all over body.”

Air India is currently struggling to make profit as it drowns deeper and deeper in debt. According to recent reports, the once-promising Indian airline is estimated to be estimated to be operating with a debt of more than 48,000 crore INR ($654,664,484), with no clear strategy or means to pay it off except to sell the company.

Indian Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said in August that the airline's debt was becoming "unsustainable."

"Air India is very clearly a legacy issue. Air India's debt is unsustainable. Forget Air India, nobody can handle that debt. For any airline to service that debt is not possible," he said, Indian daily Economic Times reported.