[netizzio]

It's interesting that the Wired article mentions the recent controversy about claims that aircraft systems can be hacked, but explicitly ignores the incident last week as having any possible relation to these events, where a bigoted employee denied a Muslim passenger an open can of Diet Coke because it "might be used as a weapon", while giving the passenger in the adjacent seat an open can of beer.

The response from United was unapologetic and absolutely disgraceful: https://hub.united.com/en-us/News/Company-Operations/Pages/s....

[srtjstjsj]

The blowback hit them and they changed the response (and removed the original response)

>>> UPDATED: Jun 3, 2015 at 1:45PM

While United did not operate the flight, Ms. Ahmad was our customer and we apologize to her for what occurred on the flight.

After investigating this matter, United has ensured that the flight attendant, a Shuttle America employee, will no longer serve United customers.

United does not tolerate behavior that is discriminatory – or that appears to be discriminatory - against our customers or employees.

All of United’s customer-facing employees undergo annual and recurrent customer service training, which includes lessons in cultural awareness. Customer-facing employees for Shuttle America also undergo cultural sensitivity training, and United will continue to work with all of our partners to deliver service that reflects United’s commitment to cultural awareness. <<<

[saryant]

A few things about that:

1) The beer isn't free, the passenger paid for the entire can or used a 1K drink chit.

2) UA flight attendants are famous for making up rules and many try to avoid handing out entire cans of soda, and this one wasn't even a United flight attendant.

3) What on earth would that have to do with today's event?

[netizzio]

Whether or not the beer was free has absolutely nothing to do with this. It's not about the beer or diet coke, but about the blatant bigotry exhibited by an employee against a passenger on a United flight, as well as inexcusable behavior by another passenger.

Similarly, whether or not this was a United flight attendant is also of absolutely zero relevance. They may have technically been an employee of Shuttle America, but were part of the cabin crew and a representative of United on that flight, working under the United brand and wearing United uniforms. Therefore, when United releases a statement making no apology for abhorrent behavior exhibited by their representative, it reflects directly on them.

It may have nothing to do with this event, just as Chris Roberts tweeting that he hacked into the in-flight entertainment system may have nothing to do with this event. It's merely interesting that Wired explicitly ignored the actions of United as having any possible relationship to this event.