A Delta passenger told the New York
Post that his pilot messaged him on Grindr, the leading hook-up
app for gay and bisexual men, while the plane was mid-air.
Twenty-seven-year-old JP Thorn told the
paper that the exchange happened during a 90-minute flight from Saint
Paul to Chicago in August.
Thorn said that he noticed the message
after the plane landed.
“I see you're on my flight. Enjoy
the ride to Chicago,” the pilot allegedly wrote.
“I messaged him back and he told me
that he was one of the pilots. My reaction was I knew I needed to
get off this plane as fast as I can,” Thorn told the outlet. “I've
had some weird experiences with proximity stuff on Grindr.”
(Related: Grindr
president reportedly said he's opposed to same-sex marriage.)
According to Thorn, the pilot sent the
messaged roughly 30 minutes before the plane landed in Chicago.
Thorn posted a screenshot of the
message on Twitter. As of Friday, the post had nearly 220,000 likes.
“He tried to find me after the flight
too,” Thorn said in a tweet.
Thorn, who continued to message the
pilot while waiting for a connecting flight, described the pilot as
“a nice guy” and said that he “totally would have met him for
coffee” under different circumstances.
(Related: Flight
attendant suspended for having sex with gay porn star Austin Wolf
mid-flight.)