Originally Posted by
flyinbob
Sounds more like a passenger preparing some sort of complaint or even lawsuit. A letter to the editor isn't the most reliable source.
I'd check an entomologist and see how likely that is. Can they live in the dryness of an airplane, in the pressurized atmosphere? Where exactly on a plane do they live? I thought bedbugs only came out to feast on you while IN bed, but they lived in wood or other areas around the bed. Such areas on a plane?
Story seems "buggy" to me...
The letter writer, David J. Anderson of Pasadena, appears to be a
world-famous CalTech scientist, although not an entomologist himself. Somehow I doubt he has either the time or the inclination to write letters to the NY Times just so he can get more compensation out of UA.
The bedbug article on Wikipedia makes it pretty clear that bedbugs can live in many different hiding places, and that the low humidity on airplanes is no problem at all. If you think about it, there are plenty of nooks and crannies in and around airline seats. I'm surprised that aircraft bedbug infestations haven't been reported earlier.
(The Wikipedia article is fascinating. Here's a sample of one of several bizarre factoids: "All bedbugs mate by traumatic insemination. Because the female has no genital opening, the male pierces her abdomen with his hypodermic genitalia and ejaculates into the body cavity.")