Passengers harried as 2 infants bitten by bed bugs on Air India’s business class flight

A passenger flying from Newark to Mumbai was left in distress when he found that his two infant daughters were bitten by bed bugs in their business class seats in an Air India flight. Bites during the 17-hour flights left the two children crying. The younger of the two, an eight-month old baby, could not stop crying and when the mother removed the child’s clothes, she found her covered in bed bug bites. This incident came to light when the passengers were preparing for landing.

According to reports, Air India had earlier received complaints about beg bug in their business class seats but nothing was done.

The father, Pravin Tonsekar, took to Twitter to post pictures of the bites and to complain to Air India along with Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu. “Suresh Prabhuji – just arrived from New York on Air India 144 business class with family . All our seats infested with bed bugs . Sir, have heard of bed bugs on trains but shocked to experience on our maharaja and that too business (sic),” he said.

Air India replied to Tonsekar and said that they have intimated the maintenance department and are looking into the matter. However, an angry Tonsekar replied, “Too late !!! Such a thing should not have happened in the first place. My wife and daughters had to suffer half of the journey sitting in economy seats with broken tables and inoperative TV (sic).”

The incident left business class passengers enraged and the onward journey from Mumbai to New Delhi was delayed by almost four hours. The flight was supposed to take off at 6 pm but eventually took off around 9:55 pm.

A business class return ticket on a non-stop flight between India and US on the AI-144 costs around Rs 2 lakh.