Airline Apologizes for Explicit Surprise Shown on Screens During Flight

Passengers aboard a recent Qantas Airways flight got quite a shock when an R-rated film was broadcast to every screen on the plane, leaving some parents with some explaining to do to their children. Now, the Australian airline is owning up to their mistake. 

It all happened aboard a flight from Sydney to Tokyo on Oct. 5. According to The Associated Press, individual movie selection at every seat was unavailable due to technical issues, so the flight crew chose one movie to play on all the screens "based on the request from a number of passengers." While Qantas itself did not confirm which film it was, The Washington Post and Deadline reported that it was Daddio, the 2023 drama starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. 

Though it's a dialogue-heavy film, there are some parts that aren't exactly meant for children, to say the least. Its R rating is for adult language, sexual material, and brief graphic nudity. In the movie, this largely amounts to sexts shown on a phone screen depicting "photos of nude female breasts and a prosthetic penis," per IMDb. 

"The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologize to customers for this experience," a Qantas spokesperson said in a statement. "All screens were changed to a family-friendly movie for the rest of the flight, which is our standard practice for the rare cases where individual movie selection isn’t possible."

In response to the kerfuffle, Qantas' Down Under sibling Air New Zealand poked fun at the incident on social media. "Plot twist: We let you choose your movies," the company wrote on X. 

Plot twist: We let you choose your movies. ????

— Air New Zealand (@FlyAirNZ) October 8, 2024

Maybe it'd be better to just bring a book on your next flight.