Thursday, July 19, 2007

Offensive Material

As many eagle-eyed cinema goers will have noticed, the head of Virgin Atlantic makes a cheeky cameo appearance in the latest James Bond film 'Casino Royale'. Richard Branson can briefly be seen going through a security arch at Miami airport shortly before things get very untidy with a fuel truck. A nice bit of publicity and harmless fun for the entrepreneurial star and balloon artist, you'd have thought.

Not in British Airway's view, however. It is a well known practice for airlines to edit out potentially offensive sections from the films they show on board (in one instance substituting a train crash for a plane crash to avoid any cockpit alarm!). BA saw fit to remove Mr. Branson from the version of the 007 caper they show in flight. As they put it, "All films are screened, we want to ensure they contain no material that might upset our customers."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What does BA mean by offensive content with regards to Mr. Branson's presence? Perhaps, it was the thought of travellers saying,"Dang! I should've flew Virgin!"