Delta Vows to Restore Deleted Gay Love Scenes in Booksmart, Rocketman

Delta says it will restore scenes of same-sex intimacy within the in-flight versions of the popular films Booksmart and Rocketman after a week of backlash.

The popular airline has broken its silence to BuzzFeed News, saying it was provided an "edited" version of the films and did not realize that the scenes had been omitted until recently.

"We are working to make sure this doesn't happen again," the company said in a statement.

The backlash began earlier this week after Booksmart director Olivia Wilde retweeted a complaint that the hookup scene between Kaitlyn Dever and Diana Silvers had been cut from the film.

Days later, The Advocate reported that scenes had also been deleted from the Elton John biopic Rocketman after the digital director of Entertainment Weekly posted a Twitter thread detailing how the film was "stripped of almost every gay reference."

The thread also pointed out the illogic of allowing scenes of domestic abuse and other types of violence in the film but taking out the depictions of same-sex love. And it inspired other recent passengers on the airline to post that they also noticed the deletion of these scenes.

In recent years, Delta has also shown degayed versions of other popular films like Carol and Bad Moms. A Delta spokesperson told The Advocate in 2017 that the airline does not have the right to edit films -- it simply screens the edited versions that are offered by studios or outside vendors.

However, this move to allow partially restore versions of Booksmart and Rocketman shows a break from this policy -- one that may help ensure LGBTQ representation continues in the skies.

The airline says the films won't be completely restored for in-flight viewership due to some material that still falls outside the airline's guidelines that it says has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of characters in the films.

Delta, a frequent sponsor of Pride events, recently scored an 85 out of 100 in the Human Rights Campaign's 2019 Corporate Equality Index. But it lost points for not having "equivalency in same- and different-sex domestic partner medical and soft benefits," plus "exclusions for transition-related care" for transgender employees.