Virgin Atlantic Issuing ‘Emotional Health’ Warnings Before Select In-Flight Films

Virgin Atlantic airlines began issuing “emotional health warnings” Wednesday prior to select in-flight movies.

The Reese Witherspoon–Robert Pattinson romance Water for Elephants and the Jennifer Anison–Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It are the first films carrying the tongue-in-cheek warning, which advises passengers to “have tissues at the ready and to press the call button for a shoulder to cry on.”

The program spawned from a U.K.-based survey in which 55 percent of respondents agreed that their emotions became heightened on flights. Forty-one percent of the men surveyed said they hid under blankets to hide their tears.

Virgin Atlantic film critic Jason Solomons said, “On a flight, we’re isolated, leaving loved ones or aching to be reunited with them. We’re nervous, we’re tired, we might have had a drink at a time we usually wouldn’t. If we see an image, a scene that reflects our emotional state, frankly we’re suckers. Flying and films is a heady cocktail, the images and feelings so close to your eyeballs, so intimate.”

The company also asked passengers via its Facebook page to weigh in on the movies that made them cry in flight. The Top Ten tearjerkers were:

1.Toy Story 3
2. The Blind Side
3. Eat, Pray, Love
4. My Sister’s Keeper
5. Seven Pounds
6. Brokeback Mountain
7. The Notebook
8. Gran Torino
9. Invictus
10. Billy Elliott