Two weeks later, Prestige Atlantic Airlines announced a company-wide policy overhaul: mandatory racial bias training for all twelve thousand employees, body cameras on a trial basis for first-class cabin crews, an anonymous passenger hotline for reporting discrimination, and a zero-tolerance policy printed in bold at the top of every crew handbook stating that any act of racial discrimination by a Prestige Atlantic employee would result in immediate termination. No warnings. No second chances. The announcement didn’t mention Flight 2261. It didn’t mention Diane Ashford. It didn’t mention champagne. But everyone who read it knew. The videos hit the internet three days after the flight. Four angles. Seven million views in forty-eight hours. The hashtag ChampagneJustice trended for a week. Isaiah Carter never commented, never posted, never gave an interview. He didn’t need to. The footage spoke for itself.
Harold Bennett sent a handwritten letter to Prestige Atlantic’s headquarters addressed to Isaiah Carter personally. Two pages, blue ink on cream stationery. The letter ended with an invitation to dinner at Harold’s home in Connecticut—a small house on a quiet street with a porch where he read legal thrillers in the morning. Isaiah accepted. They ate roast chicken. They drank red wine, not champagne. And they talked for three hours about law, about justice, and about the difference between the two.
