jamesinclair

I flew last week and got the entire can on my outbound trip, without asking. Everybody in my row did. They were all opened and poured into the plastic cups as well.

I did not get the entire can on the return.

Maybe you sit too close to the front?

At the front of the plane, they dont want to give the cans and risk running out. By the time theyre near the back, they know how much they have left.

Baze

I've been in the bulkhead row and when I ask for the full can I usually don't get denied, sometimes it is opened and first glass poured sometimes I get a cup of ice and the closed can. There really is no consistency in this. But either way is fine, I don't care. And on the rare times I don't get the full can right away they say they need to see how many other people want that and usually they come back and give me a can. This is on both Mainline and Express.

elusive1

The above is the best post of the thread.

UA has plenty of faults, but they certainly are equal opportunity in treating all customers terribly. IMO, this has nothing to do with race, UA just treats everyone bad. Sometimes people are just a......s, sometimes "sh*t rolls downhill". It is actually pretty amazing that in all the UA bad press incidents the last two years, this actually is the one that gets traction.


Isn't it also likely a factor that the mans beer was a paid item and hers was free? If someone pays for a beer, you can't give him 2 ounces, can you?

Madone59

The last time i was denied a whole can of soda is was on CO express and I asked for a Mr. pibb and only two had been loaded. The FA was worried she wouldn't have enough to go around. Other then that I have never been denied a request for a full can, and am frequently given a unopened can along with a cup of ice without even asking for it.

Saying a can of soda can be used as a weapon is ridiculous. "You could probably beat a guy to death with the Sunday New York Times couldn’t you?" - George Carlin

gophergold

Apparently this person has a history of making complaints on twitter about poor treatment of Muslims. She complained that people were staring at her and talking about her at a movie theatre.

Fredd

Repeating my earlier suggestion (but I'm not the only one being repetitive in this thread ), I gather there was also another dynamic at play here. The FA opened a can and handed it to the passenger (or was about to hand it to the passenger) or placed it on her tray, immediately after which the passenger asked for (demanded?) an unopened can.

Yes, and FAs are equal-opportunity users of that branch of the security theater mantra. I'd suggest that some women's purses would make much better weapons than coke cans when swung, but that would probably make me sexist.

BlackMountain

This went sideways when the FA came up with a silly and frankly, not defensible excuse for not offering an un-opened can. Heck, a few years ago on a domestic flight, traveling in coach, I was offered an unopened full size wine bottle from First as a gift from United to take with me. Agree with some others that "security reasons" or "federal regulations" are a kind of default response to requests that the FA doesn't want to grant but the correct explanation puts the airline or the FA in a bad light, or the FA just can't remember what the better answer is. Could probably do a whole thread on that topic alone: "Crew response to request for x: Real reason was y".




Sounds reasonable, and the better response from the FA is suggested by the policy: "I'm so sorry, but I only have a small number of cans left, if I get to the back and still have an unopened one left over I'll bring it to you."

That answer would have put it back on the passenger, who isn't going to get much sympathy from anyone for insisting that they get two full cans of a comped item before the rest of the cabin has had a chance at one. This assumes there is a policy or rule that keeps the FA from taking an opened catering item off a passenger tray and serving it to the next row.

Any others who can shed light on the carriers can policy for the complimentary portion of the domestic beverage service for mainline and other express operators? I am guessing that in general, none of the airlines are writing policies that encourage the FAs to give away as much free stuff as they "can."

As for me, on a good chunk of my shorter 50 seater flights, I'm lucky to get a full beverage service at all, a lot of times we get offered water and pepsi in cups, no ice, on a hand carried tray, sometimes just water. I don't usually ask for the can, but sometimes it is offered up, opened, and if I do ask for the can, I usually get it, or at least a refill later. The exception is alcohol, which is usually not opened, sometimes though they will ask if I want it poured for me.

leonidas

Maybe she is discriminated more often than someone from another religion. Isn't that the whole point? So I don't see anything wrong with this so called "history".

neuron

In light of Shuttle America's response re: unopened cans and lack of security risk as a rationale for not opening, this FA does not even have her bosses supporting what she said to the Chaplain. Nothing worse than giving in illegitimate reason, especially if you are going to invoke it as a security measure, or imply a passenger can use it as a weapon. I am sure you would not use this in your course of discussion with passengers and the FA should not have invoked it.

FlyWorld

I think there are two layers here.

The first layer is what you correctly summarized: Crazy psychotic FAs who scream "FAA regulations" about everything even if it has nothing to do with FAA regulations. This is very common at United Continental and is not a new issue nor does it have anything to do with being Muslim. I'm pretty sure we could take a poll and find that people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds have been screamed at by psychotic FAs to comply with non-existent FAA regulations.

But, in my gut, I do question whether the "you will turn the can of coke into a weapon" comment is a comment that is equally distributed across religious and ethnic backgrounds. I've not before heard about FAs claiming weaponization of coke cans as an excuse for refusing to serve a passenger, and the fact that it happened to someone who was wearing the head scarf may be coincidental or may be indicative of bigotry. I think that's a valid question.

Of greater importance: If, in fact, weaponization of coke cans is a legitimate national security concern, then I think they should be banned fully. Just like we have to take off our shoes because of one single incident of attempted shoe bombing. Just like we can't bring liquids past TSA because of one single incident of creating liquid explosives.

We need some clarity here.

Either coke cans are weaponizable or they aren't. If they are, then I say ban them just like everything else that's been banned.

erik123

And we should not be allowed to wear underwear while airborne.

ComeFlyWithMe33

I was actually on this flight on Friday evening from ORD to DCA. I have been a reader of this forum for a long time but seeing this all over the news made me sign up so I could tell you what really happened here and hopefully stop this liar in her tracks. I was sitting close enough to her to hear everything that was said. The flight attendant came up to the lady (I believe she even took her order first in the entire cabin as she was seated in the bulkhead 7d) and took her order. She ordered a coke zero and a hot green tea with a Splenda. The flight attendant handed her a full diet coke with a cup on top and then told her that the green tea would take a few minutes and she would get it to her ASAP. The lady said very rudely and condescending to the FA that she ordered a coke zero and basically pushed the soda back to the flight attendant. The FA said she was sorry and attempted to find a coke zero for her (which she did not have many of) and told her that she could only give her a portion of the can not the full can. This is when the lady in question started to freak out and told the FA "What do you think I will use this as a weapon?! Why can't I have the whole can? I think you are discriminating against me. I need your name...." The lady just kept yelling to her "I need your name... I am being discriminated against." This is when a few passengers told her to calm down and one guy told her to "shut her mouth and she is being ridiculous over a can of coke". No one ever said anything anti-Muslim to her at all. She was the one who started screaming discrimination when she did not get what she wanted. The FA asked her numerous times if she would like anything else when the lady just basically pushed her away with a hand in her face. The lady then got onto her phone with her credit card and paid for the internet so she could start spinning this story on social media and she was never in tears. This person is a liar plain and simple and is just pulling the discrimination card.

Fredd

Welcome to FT.

F23Coupe

"Welcome" to FT on your first post (as a lurker as you say)! Thanks for providing your eyewitness account.

What about the FA opening up a can of beer to a fellow passenger after this subject passenger pointed it out? Did that even occur, too?

And are you sure she ordered a Coke Zero and not a Diet Coke? To some people, there's a big difference between the two and I thought I read that she'd ordered a Diet Coke.

Not that these two details are significant, but noticed these as inconsistent (though they shouldn't be).

GUWonder

Maybe it means nothing to you because you don't want it to mean anything you, but the evidence here is that it must mean something to you given this discussion and the sensitivity to people discussing xenophobia directed at Muslims.

There is nothing flat out ridiculous about the fact that the discussion is about xenophobia and not just a can of Coke, as the female Muslim UA passenger felt she was the target of xenophobia on board this UA flight the FA and/or passenger on the UA flight. Whether or not the offended passenger's sentiment are ridiculous or not, there is plenty of reason to think that Muslim passengers on board UA flights are sometimes the target of xenophobic crew members or passengers when there is now an American epidemic of Islamophobic bigotry directed at Muslims such that things which are considered acceptable to say about Muslims wouldn't be allowed if directed at some other ethnic minorities. Eventually one of these kinds of incidents would raise its ugly head and actually take place -- even if one or more of these kind of incidents were more tall tale than accurate first person report.

Most Islamophobic flight-related incidents on UA rarely get any media coverage, including the times when "brown" Muslim spouses of White House staffers get flagged by xenophobic FAs and then, after deplaning at destination, get intercepted for questioning about their religion once they are off the plane and heading home from IAD or DCA. And then when investigated, it becomes clear that they were flagged by cabin crew for mundane things like going to the bathroom for "too long" or "too many times".

Do you know if any cabin crew have been provided government, airline or related contractor training that mentions terrorists or FAs wanting unopened cans of soda to use as a weapon on board flights? Discovery could be interesting.