Qantas has apologized for showing R-rated films with nudity throughout the flight

Sit back, relax and enjoy the nudity and sex?

Australian airline Qantas has apologized after a recent flight from Sydney at Tokyo's Haneda airport featured an R-rated film on every screen. And, according to online comments from people who said they were passengers on the flight, the movie can't be turned off.

According to a person who described the flight experience on Reddit, the crew played the movie after the personal in-flight entertainment system malfunctioned last week. The user added that the film, which featured sexually suggestive language, images and on-screen words, played for about an hour before it was stopped.

“It was extremely uncomfortable for everyone, especially with families and children on board,” the user wrote. “How is that acceptable for a major airline?”

Qantas told The Associated Press that the crew chose the movie “based on requests from many passengers”.

Neither the Reddit user nor the airline revealed what the movie in question was, but other media outlets and internet sleuths identified it as “Daddy,” the 2023 film starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. Set almost entirely inside a New York City taxicab, the play explores a chance encounter between a talkative cabdriver and his passenger, as he takes her from Kennedy Airport to midtown Manhattan.

A New York Times review of the film this year noted that their conversations become more intimate, with the cabdriver sharing a disturbing anecdote about his first wife and his thoughts on what married men want in a mistress, while the passenger “secretly has sex with her. establishing a “tongue-lolling lover.” The Times reported that the film was rated R for “bare breasts and barroom language.”

Another review of the film, published by the non-profit Common Sense Media, which prepares film ratings for families watching with children, said that “a brief but clear image of an erect penis” appears.

Qantas said in a statement to AP that it is reviewing how the movie was selected.

“The film was clearly not suitable to be played throughout the flight and we sincerely apologize to customers for this experience,” a Qantas spokesman said, adding that the screens were eventually switched to a family-friendly film for the remainder of the flight.