Qantas apologizes after R-rated film plays on every screen during Sydney-Tokyo flight

Things got unexpectedly racy onboard a recent Qantas flight when an R-rated film was played on all the aircraft’s screens.

According to a statement from the Australian airline confirming the incident to CNN, passengers on the flight from Sydney to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport last week were unable to select movies individually due to a technical issue with the inflight entertainment system.

“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,” said the statement.

Though Qantas did not name the movie in its statement, multiple photos of inflight screens posted on social media by users claiming to be on the flight revealed the film to be “Daddio.”

The 2023 drama starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn is rated R by the US Motion Pictures Association “for language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity.”

According to a post by a Reddit user who was reportedly on the flight, in addition to nudity, the movie featured “a lot of sexting – the kind where you could literally read the texts on screen without needing headphones.”

“It took almost an hour of this before they switched to a more kid-friendly movie, but it was super uncomfortable for everyone, especially with families and kids onboard,” said the post, which included images of the phone texts shown in the film, and noted passengers were unable to pause or turn off their screens.

In its statement, Qantas said crew initially attempted to fix the screens for customers who did not want to watch the movie. Once it was confirmed this was not possible they switched it to a children’s film.

The airline said cabin crew apologized to passengers, “particularly those who had complained about the content” and will follow up with them.

“The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologize to customers for this experience,” said a Qantas spokesperson.

“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.”

Correction: An earlier version of this report misidentified the movie’s star. She is Dakota Johnson.