Woman harassed via seat-to-seat message function on flight shares the conversation

A trans-Atlantic flight is grueling enough as it is, the last thing you need is another passenger harassing you. But that's exactly what happened on a recent Virgin Atlantic flight thanks to a messaging application in their in-flight entertainment system. 

The application allows passengers to message each other anything they want, as long as the recipient accepts the sender's request to talk once. When Jessica Van Meir boarded her flight she, unfortunately, accepted messages from one fellow passenger and his friends. 

Jessica took to Twitter to share the conversation that took place, and it was absolutely disgusting. 

Jessica wrote on Twitter: "Yesterday I was on a Virgin Atlantic flight, and I unexpectedly received these sexually harassing messages on my screen (I was in 55C). The flight attendants were helpful & dealt with it swiftly."

Jessica went on to encourage Virgin Atlantic to "take measures to prevent this from happening by flagging specific language and putting in place a reporting function on the chat to report abusive users." 

She went on to explain that flight attendants spoke with the men and the harassment stopped. 

"After the flight attendants spoke with the guys, I walked through the aisle and took a picture of them," Jessica wrote. "Afterwards, a young guy came up to me and said he heard about the chat between me & the guys and wanted to apologize on their behalf, they were on a rugby trip & he was one of the leaders. He said the guys had been drinking & he’d talk to them, was sorry and hoped we could leave it at that."

"What matters to me is not going after these guys, but making sure they understand why it was harmful."

Virgin Atlantic was quick to apologize for the harassment, writing in a statement: 

"We were extremely concerned to hear of the incident reported on-board one of our flights and are investigating as a matter of urgency. We want all of our customers to have the best possible experience when they fly with us, and have zero tolerance for any disruptive or inappropriate behaviour."

"We’re grateful to our cabin crew who supported our customer following this incident and would like to apologize for the distress caused.  We are now reviewing our entertainment systems to ensure this does not happen again."

Virgin Atlantic also reached out to Jessica personally, with the company's executive office reiterating that they would work to stop the messaging application from being used this way in the future. 

"We have zero tolerance for any disruptive or inappropriate behaviour and while I am glad to hear the crew were helpful and dealt with this swiftly, I sincerely apologise for any upset caused," a Virgin Atlantic representative wrote. 

"I would like to reassure you we are reviewing our systems to make sure this doesn't happen again. The safety and well-being of our passengers is our top priority and I just wanted to make sure that you are okay Ms Van Meir." 

Unsurprisingly, fellow Twitter users were disgusted by the behavior and quickly started to criticize the feature, which is also available with other airlines. 

"I think the whole airline chat is a big mistake," one user wrote. "It was only a matter of time before this happened."

Another user added: "Disgusting and sad. And guys wonder why women have their guard up. Don't blame them and it shocks me that c**p like this still happens. Grow up and be a gentleman!! Class goes a long way and if it doesn't, you can say that you treated a woman as she should. Take pride in that!"

While another added: "What the hell?! Also why is this even a feature, I typically don’t like talking to strangers, and I especially don’t like being bothered by strangers on a flight."