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United Breaks Guitars, Passenger Gets Revenge on YouTube

Airlines & Airports, Luggage & Packing, Stories & Personal Journals — on July 9, 2009 12:06 pm

United old-school logoAs if you needed more evidence of the viral power of the internet, a Canadian man finally got some resolution to an airline dispute after putting his grievance into song and posting it on YouTube.

Dave Carroll, a Nova Scotia-based musician, had been locked in a months-long battle with United Airlines over compensation for his $3,500 Taylor guitar, which he says the airline damaged during a flight from Chicago to Nebraska last year.

Despite repeated attempts to get United to pick up the $1,200 repair tab, the airline denied payment for the damage, claiming that it was not liable because its contract of carriage specifically excludes “valuables” (including musical instruments).

Carroll vowed to the last customer service agent who said “no” to him that he would write a series of songs about his ordeal. So far he has posted one video on the video-sharing site YouTube.

Learn more about United customer service follies with Certificate of Failure? Customer Service Recovery at United Airlines. And check out Peter’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Flight that started it all.

Titled United Breaks Guitars, the country-flavored ditty features actors posing as baggage handlers indiscriminately flinging guitar cases around an airport tarmac while Carroll strums his broken guitar. Two more songs and videos are planned.

It would be an understatement to say that the video garnered a massive response. Since July 6 over 500,000 people have viewed the video, and the huge volume of traffic on Carroll’s own Web site caused it to crash.

Check out Peter’s YouTube channel for travel tips in video form.

He has been inundated with interview requests, and the story has been picked up by news media around the world.

Faced with bad publicity and mounting pressure from the public over its seemingly petty denial of Carroll’s damage claim, on Tuesday night United Airlines relented and contacted him about making things right, saying that the video had “struck a chord” (pun intended).

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In a further attempt at damage control, United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said that “things should have been fixed much sooner.” She added Wednesday that she enjoyed Carroll’s video and would use it internally to help train staff and ensure that all customers get better service.

By Karen Elowitt for Peter Greenberg.com.

Related links: Wall Street Journal, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Ottawa Citizen

Check out the video here:

  • Sjel Mes

    Something similar happened to me with Olympic Airlines. As I was coming from Athens to Amsterdam and waiting in line to get off the plane, I heard a gasp from other passengers standing in line. To our horror, we saw the baggage guy standing at the door from the plane, throwing all the bags from over 2 storyes up TOWARDS the baggage cart waiting below, mostly missing and falling onto the tarmac! Fortunately, I wasn’t carrying any of my instruments that trip, but what a pit. No wonder so many of my bags have been damaged and very few airlines, none of American ones, have taken any responsibility for their damage. Especially with all these extra charges, they should be ashamed of themselves!

  • http://www.geoffreyweill.com Geoffrey Weill

    I arrived at JFK on July 4 on Lufthansa from Johannesburg, via Frankfurt. My Louis Vuitton duffel bag came off the belt, with the zipper tags and padlock neatly snapped off, obviously with a special machine obscured in the baggage area. Now I am a clever boy. It was a Louis Vuitton duffel bag – however, stuffed only with dirty laundry and souvenirs for the kids…and nothing was taken. So if you have to fly with “status luggage” fill it with crap.