Wednesday, July 15, 2009

united breaks guitars

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Raise your hand if your luggage has ever been delayed, lost, damaged or pilfered. My guess is that all of you have actually raised your hand – if I could actually see it and you have indeed raised it…

When I used to work for an airline’s customer relations/complaint department we would take care of customer’s complaints and claims regarding lost and/or broken luggage. Not always a pleasant job but rewarding nonetheless.

Doing that for quite a while you realize how tough it is for customers to actually get through to you. Some customers would go to great lengths to make you pay attention to their claim but none were anywhere near as creative as Canadian musician Dave Carroll.

After United Airlines broke his $3500 Taylor guitar the musician spent more than nine months asking for compensation. When his claims were rejected he wrote a funny song about it. It is now hugely popular on You Tube:

You can read this story in his own words on his blog.

Eat your heart out United Airlines! Maybe I shouldn’t say that too loud as I’ll be flying with them in two weeks and I will be changing planes in Chicago’s O’Hare airport...

3 comments:

Melisa Wells said...

Yes, and hopefully having a terrible flight delay on your connection to your next destination, so I can get over there and hug my German twin! :)

Brian o vretanos said...

I've never had a problem, but I'm an infrequent flyer who's only ever flown on single-leg journeys.

I hope that the increased interest in the band ultimately translates into increased sales that at least pay for a new guitar.

Anonymous said...

Which is why I don't travel with anything more than a roll-on I can bring on the plane, even for a two week trip. I'd rather do laundry at the end of the first week than take my chances with checked luggage.