LONDON - VIRGIN Atlantic sacked 13 cabin crew staff on Friday after they criticised some of the British airline's passengers on the social networking website Facebook.

The airline opened an investigation on Oct 23 following complaints from passengers and other Virgin staff members over the cabin crew's Facebook discussion.

'It was found that all 13 staff participated in a discussion on the networking site Facebook, which brought the company into disrepute and insulted some of our passengers,' Virgin Atlantic's director of communications Paul Charles told Reuters.

'There's a time and a place for Facebook. But there's no justification for it to be used as a sounding board for staff of any company to criticise the very passengers who ultimately pay their salaries.'

Mr Charles added the web discussion had now been removed from Facebook, though he was unable to say whether that had been done by the social networking site or a cabin crew member.

Virgin Atlantic, 49 per cent owned by Singapore Airlines, is controlled by entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

The airline specialises in long-haul flights to North America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.