United Breaks Guitars
A heart-wrenching tale for any musician or anyone who loves guitars. What happens when an airline company destroys your instrument and won't own up
A heart-wrenching tale for any musician or anyone who loves guitars. What happens when an airline company destroys your instrument and won't own up to their own negligence? You write a song (or 3) and post them on YouTube where they go viral of course.
In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.
Full story can be found at Dave Carroll's website, or the band's site, Sons of Maxwell.
UPDATE: United agrees to pay full restitution
Carroll was discussed on CNN’s Situation Room yesterday, which showed part of his video and explained his experiences.
United Airlines is now in discussions with Carroll about paying restitution.
The company also hopes to use his video as a training tool for employees.
“It struck a chord with us,” said Robin Urbanski, a spokeswoman with United Airlines.
“We are in conversations with (Carroll) to make what happened right and, while we mutually agree this should have been fixed much sooner, his video is excellent.
“It provides us with a learning opportunity we can use for training purposes.”
She said they hope to provide customers with better service.
Even Wolf Blitzer digs the song, calling it a PR nightmare for United.