I guess I don't see the outrage as there are hundreds of flight numbers that could cause folks to be offended. Should UAL ever use a number where a UAL aircraft was affected? No. But other airline flight numbers, I'm not going to waste any sleep on this one. We can memorialize the tragedies in much better ways than retiring their proverbial jerseys.

Hell, it wasn't uncommon for airlines to use parts of or even entire aircraft that been involved in terrorist events or accidents. Lufthansa still flew the 737-200 after the captain was murdered on flight 181.