You may recall the Diet Coke Lady story that we covered last week, where a Muslim female chaplin claimed that she was discriminated against on a United partner airline. Another alleged passenger claimed he was sitting nearby and that the Muslim lady, Tahera Ahmad was not telling the truth.

Now even more information is coming out.

Someone has leaked an email from an official with the airline concerned. I’ve not named that official here because he didn’t release the email and I don’t want to make him the target of the social justice league. But it’s basically an internal email that says the flight attendant did not say or intend anything discriminatory.

Click to enlarge:

The official notes:

There has been extensive reporting on the incident and as is many times the case, not all of what has been reported is accurate. Additionally, some key details of the incident were not reported at all, but one thing that has been reported is what was most problematic. A female guest, wearing a hijab, asked for an unopened can of Diet Coke and was told that it was not allowed “because the unopened can could be used as a weapon.” The guest was left with the impression that the comment was expressed because of bigotry or discrimination on behalf of our flight attendant.

The comment was a regrettable, off handed comment that was an incorrect statement of policy. Yet, we understand how the comment could be offensive to a passenger. Our flight attendant sincerely apologized to the passenger and in most cases that would have been the end of the story. But in today’s social media world, it only took hours for an isolated comment to be turned into a media firestorm.

The official does NOT confirm the rest of Ahmad’s claims, in fact, noting that they stand with their flight attendant and they don’t believe there was any discrimination meant.

In closing, I do want to assure our associates that based on our preliminary investigation, we do not believe the flight attendant’s comment was intentional, was made with any racial bias, or was intended to be an act of discrimination against this passenger.

Obviously, if they thought that the flight attendant had actually done anything intentionally discriminatory, she would have been fired. But she wasn’t. They’re trying to thread the needle of customer service, while not throwing their employee under the bus.

HT: Sassy Stew