Cockroaches on a plane: Luggage on insect-infested aircraft sent back from Manchester to Morocco
Exclusive: ‘Colleagues say I should burn my baggage rather than bringing it into my home’ says passenger
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More than 100 holidaymakers who returned from Morocco to Manchester airport last week are still waiting for their luggage – apparently after the aircraft hold was found to be infested with cockroaches.
Royal Air Maroc flight AT818 from Casablanca arrived on time in Manchester at 5.20pm on Thursday, 15 August. But at 7pm, arriving passengers were still waiting for their baggage.
One traveller, Karen Gee, said: “Checking my AirTag, I could see my case was indeed in Manchester. After 90 minutes of waiting in the baggage hall with no one’s luggage appearing and no communication, the nature of the problem was revealed.
“Apparently the aircraft hold was found to contain a cockroach infestation and consequently no staff members were allowed near it for health and safety reasons.”
After a further half-hour the passengers were told to go home and wait for their bags. By this stage the Boeing 737 had taken off to fly back to the Royal Air Maroc hub at Casablanca’s Mohammed V International Airport.
Ms Gee, a senior travel industry executive from Shropshire, said: “On Friday I checked my AirTag again and could see that my case was back in Casablanca so presumably they just sealed the aircraft and flew it back to base with the full flight of luggage on board.”
Once in Casablanca, the Manchester bags were offloaded and the aircraft continued in normal service. The 15-year-old Boeing 737 made a scheduled flight to Abuja in Nigeria that night, and has since been to a wide range of destinations including Geneva and Paris.
The luggage was not loaded on to the next Royal Air Maroc flight to Manchester, which operated normally on Sunday.
On Monday morning – day five since the infestation was discovered – Ms Gee’s AirTag shows her baggage still to be at Casablanca airport.
While Ms Gee waits for the luggage to be returned to her, she told The Independent: “Mine is a soft Antler suitcase, so I’m feeling super anxious that the cockroaches will have easily found a way inside to lay eggs or similar – especially as they are known to be incredibly resilient and difficult to get rid of, apparently surviving nuclear wars.
“Of course I’d like my stuff back but I don’t want to take any risks bringing it into my home. I asked some colleagues what they thought I should do and the overriding answer was not to take the risk and just burn it.”
But Professor Tim Coulson, joint head of the Oxford University Department of Biology, offered some reassurance about the limits of cockroach abilities.
The author of The Universal History of Us told The Independent: “They’d be extremely unlikely to be able to burrow through the material most suitcases are made from.
“However, they could hide in the cavities where the wheels are attached, or work through any gaps if suitcases are not zipped up properly.”
The next flight from Casablanca to Manchester is on Tuesday.
The Independent has sought responses from Royal Air Maroc, the ground handler Swissport and Manchester airport.
Royal Air Maroc is a member of the Oneworld alliance, alongside British Airways.
Insects have caused problems for British airline passengers in the past – but usually when they block the speed-measuring pitot tubes.
