Hotels 'deploying pest experts and UK could ground flights' over French bed bugs

08 October 2023 , 13:16

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Pest control experts are struggling to contain the "super bedbugs" (Image: TERESA SUAREZ/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Flights will be grounded if "super bedbugs" are found on board aircrafts and hotel chains will deploy pest control experts as the UK prepares for the invasion of French bed bugs, say reports.

A major UK hotel chain is said to be quizzing guests as they check in on whether they have arrived from France, with the rooms of those who have undergoing a deep clean by pest control experts when they leave, according to reports. At the same time, Air France, which runs up to six direct flights a day from Paris to London, is reported to have said it will ground any aircraft if bedbugs are detected on board.

The bedbugs, currently overrun in France, may have developed into "super-bedbugs" which are resistant to insecticides, with experts saying they're "harder to kill than ever before.

"Pest controllers have to return to kill them again because they survive the spray," pest control expert Nicolas Roux de Bezieux told the Mail on Sunday. With thousands of travellers from France arriving on trains, flights and ferries, fears are growing that the outbreak will quickly spread to the UK.

The outlet found that Millennium Hotels and Resorts, which operates 18 hotels in the UK, are asking new guests whether they have travelled from France, according to staff at one of its London hotels. "Every time we do the check-in we ask the guest are you travelling from Paris?'" a receptionist said.

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"All the hotels which come under Millennium Group are doing this." A manager at the hotel added: "As soon as the guests leave, we put that particular room out of service and we just clean everything again."

According to reports Eurostar trains that run between London and Paris will undergo disinfection if there is the "slightest doubt" of infestation, while Transport for London bosses said they were "monitoring" the Tube network.

The aviation industry is carefully monitoring the situation as social media reported that bedbugs were found in Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport. EasyJet, which operates more than ten direct flights between London and Paris each day, last night said: "Our aircraft are cleaned to a very high standard every night with key parts of the cabin being disinfected. We continue to actively monitor the situation in France."

Zesha Saleem