Virgin Australia may have published a customer’s hate-mail to support their Pride Flight, but the move has been denounced as ‘rage-baiting’.
When Virgin Australia published a customer’s hate-mail in a bid to support LGBTQ+ rights – and their Pride Flight – they surely would not have expected it to backfire. Yet, the brand has largely been panned for what people have called ‘rage-baiting’.
In a now-deleted interaction, the airline published what they claimed was hate e-mail they received from ‘a disgruntled former passenger.’ The sender had objected to Virgin Australia featuring and celebrating drag queens in their recent ads, claiming it was ‘mentally deranged’.
The airline published a screenshot of the email on their social media, and replied: “Thank you for your email Karen, in case you missed it, Pride Flight is on sale now.”
The move, however, accrued backlash over social media. Opinions ranged from calling the tweet inappropriate for publishing hate-mail to claiming that the original email had been faked as a marketing gimmick.
“Yes, please, support LGBTQI+ but don’t make up fake hate emails to sell airline tickets and then delete your post when called on it.” a journalist wrote.
Calling the airline’s tweet ‘rainbow capitalism at its finest,’ queer writer Joshua Badge said: “Either it’s fake or they published a hate email… taking bets for which is worse lmao.”
The airline was quick to respond. After taking down the tweet, a statement from Virgin to Daily Mail Australia said: “At Virgin Australia, we believe it’s incredibly important that we use our voice to champion and support the LGBTQIA+ community in the places we live, work and fly.”
“However, the decision to post online disrespectful and hateful email communications about our Pride Flights was an error of judgement by our team,” the airline added. “Whilst the intention was to shine a light on this intolerant conduct, the reality was that it was an inappropriate thing to do.”
