You can probably imagine the scenarios included in an airline’s crisis communication plan.
Extreme weather, mechanical malfunctions, cyber-attacks and the mistreatment of passengers trending on social media are all likely to feature prominently.
But what about showing an ‘inappropriate’ or spicy film to every passenger on a flight? And passengers being unable to turn off their screens?
That’s the unusual situation that landed Qantas in hot water.
The inflight screening with a difference happened on a flight from Sydney to Tokyo after the plane’s entertainment system failed to work properly before take-off.
The crew decided they would show the same film to all passengers.
And they chose Daddio – an R-rated movie for ‘language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity’.
The film stars Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn, whose characters discuss sex and relationships.
According to angry passengers posting on Reddit, there was also – “a lot of sexting – the kind where you could literally read the texts on screen without needing headphones.”
And, to make an uncomfortable situation a bit more awkward, it seems there was no way of avoiding the film as passengers could not turn off, pause or dim their screens.
According to reports, it took between 40 minutes and an hour for the film to be turned off and replaced with something more family-friendly.
Unhappy passengers shared their experiences on social media.
One complained that it was “40min of penis and boobs” before the movie was turned off.
What trends on social media is often picked up by traditional media, as we explained during our recent media skills refresher webinar.
And this story certainly ticked a lot of the TRUTH acronym we explored during that webinar to explain what makes something newsworthy.
Here is a taste of the widespread coverage it generated:
Qantas Apologizes for Showing R-Rated Film With Nudity to Entire Flight New York Times
Qantas apologises after mature-rated film Daddio played to all passengers Sky News
Qantas apologizes after R-rated film plays on every screen during Sydney-Tokyo flight CNN
Airline apologises after film featuring sexting and nudity played to entire plane The Mirror
Qantas showed entire plane 40 minutes of X-rated film they couldn’t turn off Metro
Ouch. That’s a pretty turbulent set of headlines for Australia’s flagship carrier.
How has it responded?
Qantas issued a statement that has been picked up in most of the media coverage.
In it, it says: “The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologise to customers for this experience.
“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.
“We are reviewing how the movie was selected.”
A statement carried on CNN included a little more detail. It said: “Our crew members had a limited list of movies that they were able to play across all screens on the aircraft and based on the request from a number of passengers, a particular movie was selected for the entire flight.”
Qantas has endured several recent scandals, including selling thousands of tickets for flights that had already been cancelled and illegally sacking 1,700 workers during the pandemic.
There have also been regular complaints about an unreliable and expensive service. The Financial Times reported last year that ‘Australia falls out of love with Qantas’. To turn this around, the airline has invested more than $230 million since September 2023 in improving customer experience.
This latest story is another setback for the ‘Flying Kangaroo’.
When a crisis strikes, you must move quickly to protect your reputation. There is little time for planning your responses, fact-checking or ensuring you have covered all the crucial bases. So, when the worst happens, wouldn't it be handy to have a checklist you can follow?
But its response feels proportionate for this type of crisis media management incident.
The statement apologises and hints at action taken to ensure something similar does not happen again. Additionally, an article in USA Today says the airline’s customer team will “follow up with customers”, which sounds reassuring.
If I’m being picky, I always prefer a ‘sorry’ to ‘we apologise’. It sounds more meaningful and genuine. As we say during our crisis communication courses, say you’re sorry. And say it first.
There also seems to be a contradiction between the ‘we are reviewing how the movie was selected’ statement and the CNN response that outlines how the film was selected.
However, the story is an excellent example of the importance of expecting the unexpected in effective crisis media management.
It seems unlikely all passengers being forced to watch an explicit movie featured in Qantas’s horizon scanning for potential issues. As someone who writes many crisis scenarios for our training courses, I’m not convinced it is something I would have conceived.
But it happened.
Being prepared is crucial. You may not be able to predict every crisis cause. But you can ensure you have crisis plans and teams in place that allow you to respond quickly when the worst happens – or an unsuitable film is shown to all your passengers.
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