United flight 169 was traveling from Venice to Newark earlier this week when a passenger began noticing a large quantity of large ants on board the plane.
Charlotte Burns, an editor based in New York, began live tweeting the incident as it happened…
On the plane from Venice to New York when a large, fat ant walks over my pillow. Hmmm. That's odd.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Minutes later, another fat little bug hurries over the television screen
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Then another one—on my arm! These are bold. I start to feel itchy
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
One over here, between the seats. I tell the staff: they ask if I can wait until after the plane takes off? We're taxiing. Umm, ok, sure.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Meanwhile, I am reading a good book so forget about the ants for a minute. Until—another one on the pillow. Ok, this is becoming rapidly less relaxing.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
The nice lady is talking to me and pouring a drink when she shudders: she's seen an ant, marching across the top of the seat in front. She calls her senior colleague. This is becoming *disruptive* (and in the old-fashioned way before tech people coopted the term)
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Problem is, it's time for the meal service. Would I mind waiting? Umm, ok sure.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Until: all of a sudden. I mind. I mind very much. Here's another bugger dashing—absolutely tearing it!—across the armrest. Where is this ant going? To an ant party? An ant union meeting about bad travel conditions?
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
The guy seated across from me in the middle aisle has been on ant watch, it turns out. He says he has seen a parade — a parade!— of six of the in the overhead locker in the seat in front of me
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Now it's serious.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
For one, I've finished my book ("Less"—it's really good). And, ofc, now the ant situation is officially a *situation*. The part of me that, you know, doesn't want to be difficult or cause a fuss is being taken over by the part of me that really doesn't like ants on airplanes
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Me and the middle aisle guy are standing up like we are the ant enforcers while the senior cabin crew guy rocks up, armed with… a flashlight and a wet cloth. Sure, ant-mageddon might be undone with a lemony rag, why not.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Cabin crew guy tells me to go stand in the galley so he can "rip" my seat apart (aka wipe it with a damp cloth). So, I go stand up there with my laptop and earphones trying to edit this wk's podcast. I look like a complete tool. People are looking at me like wtf is her deal
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Cabin guy comes back: he's wiped it all down and saw one more in the window-well. The WINDOW? This means the ants are expanding their march. I suspect the lemony cloth hasn't quite been our Excalibur.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Middle aisle guy is ON IT: look in the overhead bins, he urges cabin guy. Cabin guy flashes the light and says, yeah, I can't see anything. I saw PERHAPS TAKE THE BAGS OUT. He says I can't, the guy who owns them is asleep.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
WAKE HIM UP, me and middle aisle guy gently suggest
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Guy wakes up—and he's wearing a SPIDERMAN eyemask, by the way, because @UnitedAirlines has obviously got some merch deal—and says very calmly for a guy who just got woken up about an ant infestation "ah yes, I saw one earlier"
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
The cabin guy does the flashlight thing again in the overhead locker and says, I can't see anything. Me and middle aisle guy say please take the bags out and check beneath. He does. ANTS! Ants lie beneath.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
The guy in front pulls down his case (which btw isn't zipped shut, as middle aisle guy notes to me in an aside) and ants ants ants spill out, running in every which direction. This is absolutely heeby-jeeby-goose-bumpy-get-me-a-gin-gross
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
This is where things start to get more inept. They open the suitcase ON THE SEAT! why? Ants running everywhere and guy in front is using his hands as little tweezers, picking them off one by one. Cabin guy is using sterile lemon wipes.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
She, cool as a cucumber, pulls down *her* spiderman mask and lies down without another word. Lady. I salute you.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Me, meanwhile, not so cool. I've taken over the flashlight and am directing the cabin crew and guy in front. Let's quarantine the bag, people! Let's pull the seat up and take off the covers—ants are running everywhere!
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Now, we are a further four hours from land. As I type, ants appear. These guys are running like the absolute clappers now.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Guy in front asks me "do you not get ants in New York? In Italy we get them for one month, big ones, these ones, then they go away". He has spent the past hour wandering the plane up and down, up and down, avoiding his seat and quarantined bag
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Lady behind has not moved a muscle (unflappable legend)
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Middle aisle guys shrugs, says "at least they're not bedbugs". I feel visceral terror and say "Yes. I have had bed bugs." He says "me too". This explains our vigilance. He says "But these are really big ants". I say "I know." I think I got a bite.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Cabin crew offered me a choice of three kinds of white wine.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
This is my new normal. I live here now. Me and the ants.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
BTW: middle aisle guy was watching the new Spiderman when this all happened and people around me are all wearing Spiderman eye masks, which is to say: if this were a movie, that would be heavy foreshadowing that I have in fact been bitten by an ant and am now ant woman
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Update: I guess this silly twitter story got to someone in corporate because, while nobody on the plane has come to talk to me to actually apologize, a cabin crew member just said to me when I got up to stretch my legs "are you going to take his details and do anything?"
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
I said "huh?". She says, "That guy: they came from his bag. They weren't on the plane."
I said, you're assuming that; you don't know that. And, even if it were the case, shouldn't there be some protocol for bugs on planes?
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
She says "No, because it's never happened before"
I said: "The cabin crew guy told me this had happened once before in his career"
"No, it hasn't happened. And they came from that man's bag. Not the plane."
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
Which is all to say: @united — bugs happen! Deal with them! Don't tell one passenger to blame another passenger for an inconvenienced flight with an abundance of household insects.
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
I’m home and not taking any chances: the suitcase is going in the Zapp Bug oven which is a) a real thing b) like a large pizza bag but to overheat bugs not good and c) is the best way to kill bugs and we just happened to have it because of bed bugs. pic.twitter.com/Na6ZZj9wDQ
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
And I definitely got bit *shudders* pic.twitter.com/WjL5uNfygo
— charlotte burns (@charlieburns) June 17, 2019
United’s response during the event:
In a statement while the tweets were happening, a United spokesperson said: ‘We are concerned by the experience our customer reported on United flight 169 from Venice to Newark. We have been in contact with the crew and they have advised the ants have been isolated from a customer’s bag. At this time, the aircraft will continue to its final destination. We will be taking the aircraft out of service when it arrives in Newark.’
Frankly, I don’t know if the ants truly came from the passenger’s bag or were on the plane itself. I also can’t tell if there were 20 ants and she was making a mountain out of an anthill (you see what I did there?), or if there were actually 200 or 2000 (in which case yes, it’s a problem). But I’m glad United is going to check the plane out.
If nothing else, it made for a good story. 😉
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
3 comments
Interesting she forgot to take a single photo while onboard while having all the time to tweet about it.
[…] Passenger live-tweets their bug-infested United flight […]
What Brian said. This is bs.