A Delta Air Lines passenger claims a pilot used the gay dating app Grindr to hit on him during a flight from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Chicago this past August.
According to the New York Post, 27-year-old JP Thorn received the message after the flight landed and his cellular service returned.
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“I see you’re on my flight,” the message read. “Enjoy the ride to Chicago.”
“My deductive reasoning led me to believe that he was the pilot,” Thorn told the Post. “I messaged him back and he told me that he was one of the pilots.”
The Hamline University student said the message was sent 30 minutes prior to landing and that the man’s profile photo featured a view of the sky taken from the cockpit.
“My reaction was I knew I needed to get off this plane as fast as I can,” said Thorn. “I’ve had some weird experiences with proximity stuff on Grindr.”
However, Thorn continued to chat with the man while he walked to his connecting flight and said he turned out to be a “nice guy.”
“He asked me about our flight, how it was on the way, and [the conversation] was really standard,” he told the Post. “I said there was no turbulence, then he made a joke about turbulence.”
Thorn said he deleted the app after landing in Nashville and hasn’t talked to the pilot since. “I meet up with people all the time from Grindr. I think I totally would have met him for coffee.”
remember when my pilot messaged me on grindr at 30,000 feet in the air pic.twitter.com/0q7QNDX7MV
— JP (@emobandtshirt) November 25, 2018
He said he’ll continue to fly with Delta despite the awkward interaction. “It’s the only airline I tend to use. I don’t think they get into too much controversy,” Thorn told the Post.
